Suddenly Edwin, still singing, pushed past them, and going up to the portcullis pressed himself against the bars.
“Get back, boy,” Sir Gawain said, grasping his shoulders. “There’s danger here, and that’s enough of your songs!”
Edwin gripped the bars with both hands, and for a moment he and the old knight tussled. Then they both broke off and stepped back from the gate. Beatrice, at Axl’s breast, let out a small gasp, but at that instant Axl’s view was obscured by Edwin and Sir Gawain. Then the beast came into the pool of moonlight, and he saw it more clearly.
“God protect us,” Beatrice said. “Here’s a creature escaped from the Great Plain itself, and the air grows colder.”
“Don’t worry, princess. It can’t breach those bars.”
Sir Gawain, who had immediately drawn his sword again, began to laugh quietly. “Not nearly as bad as I feared,” he said, then laughed a little more.
“Surely bad enough, sir,” Axl said. “It looks well able to devour each of us in turn.”
They might have been gazing at a large skinned animal: an opaque membrane, like the lining of a sheep’s stomach, was stretched tightly over the sinews and joints. Swathed as it was now in moonshadow, the beast appeared roughly the size and shape of a bull, but its head was distinctly wolf-like and of a darker hue—though even here the impression was of blackening by flames rather than of naturally dark fur or flesh. The jaws were massive, the eyes reptilian.
Sir Gawain was still laughing to himself. “Coming down that gloomy tunnel my wild imaginings had readied me for worse. Once, sir, on the marshes at Dumum, I faced wolves with the heads of hideous hags! And at Mount Culwich, double-headed ogres that spewed blood at you even as they roared their battlecry! Here’s little more than an angry dog.”
“Yet it bars our way to freedom, Sir Gawain.”
“It does that for sure. So we may stare at it for an hour until the soldiers come down the tunnel behind us. Or we may lift this gate and fight it.”
“I’m inclined to think it a foe darker than a fierce dog, Sir Gawain. I ask you not to grow complacent.”
“I’m an old man, sir, and it’s many a year since I swung this blade in anger. Yet I’m still a knight well trained, and if this be a beast of this earth, I’ll get the better of it.”
“See, Axl,” Beatrice said, “how its eyes follow Master Edwin.”
Edwin, now strangely calm, had been walking experimentally, first left, then to the right, always staring back at the beast whose gaze never left him.
“The dog hungers for the boy,” Sir Gawain said thoughtfully. “It may be there’s dragon spawn within this monster.”
“Whatever its nature,” Axl said, “it awaits our next move with strange patience.”
“Then let me propose this, friends,” said Sir Gawain. “I’m loath to use this Saxon boy like a young goat tied to trap a wolf. Yet he seems a brave lad, and in no less danger wandering here weaponless. Let him take the candle and go stand there at the back of the chamber. Then if you, Master Axl, can somehow raise this gate again, perhaps even with your good wife’s help, the beast will be free to come through. My fancy is it will make straight for the boy. Knowing the path of its charge, I’ll stand here and cut it down as it passes. Do you approve the scheme, sir?”
“It’s a desperate one. Yet I too fear the soldiers will soon discover this tunnel. So let’s try it, sir, and even with my wife and I hanging together on the rope, we’ll do our best to raise this gate. Princess, explain to Master Edwin our plan and let’s see if he’ll enter into it.”
But Edwin seemed to have grasped Sir Gawain’s strategy without a word being said to him. Taking the candle from the knight, the boy measured out ten good strides over the bones till he was back in the shadows. When he turned again, the candle below his face barely trembled, and revealed blazing eyes fixed on the creature beyond the bars.
“Quick then, princess,” Axl said. “Climb on my back and try to reach the rope’s end. See where it dangles there.”
At first they nearly toppled over. Then they used the pillar itself to support them, and after a little more groping, he heard her say: “I hold it, Axl. Release me and it’ll surely come down with me. Catch me so I don’t fall all at once.”
“Sir Gawain,” Axl called softly. “Are you ready, sir?”
“We’re ready.”
“If the beast passes you, then surely it’s the end of this brave boy.”
“I know it, sir. And it will not pass.”
“Let me down slowly, Axl. If I’m still in the air holding the rope, reach up and tug me down.”
Axl released Beatrice and for an instant she hung suspended in the air, her body weight insufficient to raise the gate. Then Axl managed to grip another portion of the rope close to her two hands, and they tugged together. At first nothing happened, then something yielded, and the gate rose with a shudder. Axl continued tugging, and unable to see the effect, called out: “Is it high yet, sir?”
There was a pause before Sir Gawain’s voice came back. “The dog stares our way and nothing now between us.”
Twisting, Axl looked around the pillar in time to see the beast leap forward. The old knight’s face, caught in moonlight, looked aghast as he swung his sword, but too late, and the creature was past him and moving unerringly towards Edwin.
The boy’s eyes grew large, but he did not drop the candle. Instead he moved aside, almost as if out of politeness, to let the beast pass. And to Axl’s surprise, the creature did just that, running on into the blackness of the tunnel out of which not long ago they had all emerged.
“I’ll hold it up yet,” Axl shouted. “Cross the threshold and save yourselves!”
But neither Beatrice beside him, nor Sir Gawain, who had lowered his sword, seemed to hear. Even Edwin appeared to have lost interest in the terrible creature that had just sped past him and would surely return any moment. The boy, candle held before him, came over to where the old knight was standing, and together they stared down at the ground.
“Let the gate fall, Master Axl,” Sir Gawain said without looking up. “We’ll raise it again soon enough.”
The old knight and the boy, Axl realised, were regarding with fascination something moving on the ground before them. He let the gate fall, and as he did so, Beatrice said:
“A fearsome thing, Axl, and I’ve no need to see it. But go and look if you will and tell me what you see.”
“Didn’t the beast run into the tunnel, princess?”
“Some of it did, and I heard its footsteps cease. Now, Axl, go and see the part of it lies at the knight’s feet.”
As Axl came towards them, Sir Gawain and Edwin both started as though shaken from a trance. Then they moved aside and Axl saw the beast’s head in the moonlight.
“The jaws will not cease,” Sir Gawain said in a perturbed tone. “I’ve a mind to take my sword to it again, yet fear that would be a desecration to bring more evil upon us. Yet I wish it would cease moving.”
Indeed it was hard to believe the severed head was not a living thing. It lay on its side, the one visible eye gleaming like a sea creature. The jaws moved rhythmically with a strange energy, so that the tongue, flopping amidst the teeth, appeared to stir with life.
“We’re beholden to you, Sir Gawain,” Axl said.
“A mere dog, sir, and I’d happily face worse. Yet this Saxon boy shows rare courage, and I’m glad to have done him some service. But now we must hurry on, and with caution too, for who knows what occurs above us, or even if a second beast awaits beyond that chamber.”
They now discovered a crank behind one of the pillars, and fastening the rope end to it, soon raised the gate without difficulty. Leaving the beast’s head where it had fallen, they passed under the portcullis, Sir Gawain once more leading, sword poised, and Edwin at the rear.
The second chamber of the mausoleum showed clear signs of having served as the beast’s lair: amidst the ancient bones were fresher carcasses of sheep a
nd deer, as well as other dark, foul-smelling shapes they could not identify. Then they were once more walking stooped and short of breath along a winding passage. They encountered no more beasts, and eventually they heard birdsong. A patch of light appeared in the distance, and then they came out into the forest, the early dawn all around them.
In a kind of daze, Axl came upon a cluster of roots rising between two large trees, and taking Beatrice’s hand, helped her sit down on it. At first Beatrice was too short of breath to speak, but after a moment she looked up, saying:
“There’s room here beside me, husband. If we’re safe for now, let’s sit together and watch the stars fade. I’m thankful we’re both well and that evil tunnel’s behind us.” Then she said: “Where’s Master Edwin, Axl? I don’t see him.”
Looking about him in the half-light, Axl spotted Sir Gawain’s figure nearby, silhouetted against the dawn, head bowed, a hand on a tree trunk to steady him while he regained his breath. But there was no sign of the boy.
“Just now he was behind us,” Axl said. “I even heard him exclaim as we came into the fresh air.”
“I watched him hasten on, sir,” Sir Gawain said without turning, his breath still laboured. “Not being elderly as the rest of us, he’s no need to lean on oaks panting and gasping. I suppose he hurries back to the monastery to rescue Master Wistan.”
“Didn’t you think to delay him, sir? Surely he hurries to grave danger, and Master Wistan by now killed or captured.”
“What would you have me do, sir? I did all I could. Hid myself in that airless place. Overcame the beast though it had devoured many brave men before us. Then at the end of it all, the boy runs back to the monastery! Am I to give chase with this heavy armour and sword? I’m all done in, sir. All done in. What’s my duty now? I must pause and think it over. What would Arthur have me do?”
“Are we to understand, Sir Gawain,” Beatrice asked, “that it was you in the first place came to tell the abbot of Master Wistan’s real identity as a Saxon warrior from the east?”
“Why go through it again, mistress? Did I not lead you to safety? So many skulls we trod upon before coming out to this sweet dawn! So many. No need to look down, one hears their cackle with each tread. How many dead, sir? A hundred? A thousand? Did you count, Master Axl? Or were you not there, sir?” He was still a silhouette beside a tree, his words sometimes hard to catch now the birds had begun their early chorus.
“Whatever the history of this night,” Axl said, “we owe you much thanks, Sir Gawain. Clearly your courage and skill remain undiminished. Yet I too have a question to put to you.”
“Spare me, sir, enough. How can I chase a nimble youth up these wooded slopes? I’m drained, sir, and perhaps not just of breath.”
“Sir Gawain, were we not comrades once long ago?”
“Spare me, sir. I did my duty tonight. Is that not enough? Now I must go find my poor Horace, tied to a branch so he wouldn’t wander, yet what if a wolf or bear comes upon him?”
“The mist hangs heavily across my past,” Axl said. “Yet lately I find myself reminded of some task, and one of gravity, with which I was once entrusted. Was it a law, a great law to bring all men closer to God? Your presence, and your talk of Arthur, stirs long-faded thoughts, Sir Gawain.”
“My poor Horace, sir, so dislikes the forest at night. The hooting owl or the screech of a fox is enough to frighten him, no matter he’ll face a shower of arrows without flinching. I’ll go to him now, and let me urge you good people not to rest here too late. Forget the young Saxons, the pair of them. Think now of your own cherished son waiting for you at his village. Best go on your way quickly, I say, now you’re without your blankets and provisions. The river’s near and a fast tide on it flowing east. A friendly word with a bargeman may secure you a ride downstream. But don’t dally here, for who knows when soldiers will come this way? God protect you, friends.”
With a rustle and a few thumps, Sir Gawain’s form disappeared into the dark foliage. After a moment, Beatrice said:
“We didn’t bid him farewell, Axl, and I feel poorly for it. Yet that was a strange leave he took of us and a sudden one.”
“I thought so too, princess. But perhaps he gives us wise counsel. We should hurry on to our son and never mind our recent companions. I feel concern for poor Master Edwin, yet if he’ll hasten back to the monastery, what can we do for him?”
“Let’s rest just a moment longer, Axl. Soon we’ll be on our way, the two of us, and we’d do well to seek a barge to speed our journey. Our son must be wondering what keeps us.”
Chapter Eight
The young monk was a thin, sickly-looking Pict who spoke Edwin’s language well. No doubt he had been delighted to have in his company someone nearer his own age, and for the first part of the journey down through the dawn mists, he had talked with relish. But since entering the trees, the young monk had fallen silent and Edwin now wondered if he had in some way offended his guide. More likely the monk was simply anxious not to attract the attention of whatever lurked in these woods; amidst the pleasant birdsong, there had been some strange hissings and murmurs. When Edwin had asked once again, more from a wish to break the silence than for reassurance, “So my brother’s wounds seemed not to be mortal?” the reply had been almost curt.
“Father Jonus says not. There’s none wiser.”
Wistan, then, could not be so badly hurt. Indeed, he must have managed this same journey down the hill not long ago, and while it was still dark. Had he had to lean heavily on the arm of his guide? Or had he managed to go mounted on his mare, perhaps with a monk holding steady the bridle?
“Show this boy down to the cooper’s cottage. And take care no one sees you leave the monastery.” Such, according to the young monk, had been Father Jonus’s instruction to him. So Edwin would soon be reunited with the warrior, but what sort of welcome could he expect? He had let Wistan down at the first challenge. Instead of hurrying to his side at the first sign of battle, Edwin had run off into the long tunnel. But his mother had not been down there, and only when the tunnel’s end had finally appeared, distant and moon-like in the blackness, had he felt lifting from him the heavy clouds of dream and realised with horror what had occurred.
At least he had done his utmost once he had emerged into the chilly morning air. He had run almost the whole way back up to the monastery, slowing only for the steepest slopes. Sometimes, pushing through the woods, he had felt himself lost, but then the trees had thinned and the monastery had appeared against the pale sky. So he had gone on climbing and arrived at the big gate, breathless and with his legs aching.
The small door beside the main gate was unlocked, and he had managed to collect himself sufficiently to enter the grounds with stealthy care. He had been aware of smoke for the latter part of his climb, but now it tickled his chest, making it hard not to cough loudly. He knew then for sure it was too late to move the hay wagon, and felt a great emptiness opening within him. But he had pushed the feeling aside for another moment, and pressed on into the grounds.
For some time he came across neither monk nor soldier. But as he moved along the high wall, ducking his head so as not to be spotted from some far-off window, he had seen below the soldiers’ horses crowded together in the small yard inside the main gate. Bound on all sides by high walls, the animals, still saddled, were circling nervously, even though there was scarcely space to do so without colliding. Then as he came towards the monks’ quarters, where another of his age might well have rushed on to the central courtyard, he had had the presence of mind to recall the geography of the grounds and proceed by a roundabout route, utilising what he remembered of the back ways. Even on reaching his destination, he had placed himself behind a stone pillar and peered round cautiously.
The central courtyard was barely recognisable. Three robed figures were sweeping wearily, and as he watched, a fourth arrived with a pail and tossed water across the cobbles, setting to flight several lurking crows. The ground was strewn in p
laces with straw and with sand, and his eyes were drawn to the several shapes covered over with sackcloth, which he supposed to be corpses. The old stone tower, where he knew Wistan had held out, loomed over the scene, but this too had changed: it was charred and blackened in many places, especially around its arched entryway and each of its narrow windows. To Edwin’s eyes the tower as a whole appeared to have shrunk. He had been craning his neck around the pillar to ascertain if the pools surrounding the covered shapes were of blood or of water, when the bony hands had grasped his shoulders from behind.
He had twisted around to find Father Ninian, the silent monk, staring into his eyes. Edwin had not cried out, but had said, in a low voice, pointing towards the bodies: “Master Wistan, my Saxon brother. Does he lie there?”
The silent monk appeared to understand, and shook his head emphatically. But even as he raised a finger to his lips in the familiar manner, he had stared warningly into Edwin’s face. Then, glancing furtively around him, Ninian had tugged Edwin away from the courtyard.
“Can we be certain, warrior,” he had asked Wistan the day before, “the soldiers will really come? Who’ll tell them we’re here? Surely these monks believe us but simple shepherds.”
“Who knows, boy. Perhaps we’ll be left in peace. But there’s one I fancy may betray our presence here, and even now the good Brennus may be issuing his orders. Test it well, young comrade. Britons have a way of dividing a bale from within with wooden slats. We need it pure hay all the way down.”
He and Wistan had been in the barn behind the old tower. Having for the moment done with woodcutting, the warrior had been seized by the urge to load the rickety wagon high with the hay stored at the back of the shed. As they had set about this task, Edwin had been required at regular intervals to clamber up onto the bales and prod into them with a stick. The warrior, observing carefully from the ground, would sometimes make him go over a section again, or order him to thrust a leg as far down as possible into a particular spot.