The Book of the Lion (4 page)

 

I slipped to the heavy wooden front door and gave it a nudge, and then a push, and then at last put my full weight into it. What made me certain, at that moment, that someone spoke my name?

But I could see no one.

I kept my gait deliberate as I crossed the courtyard. A horse made a high note of inquiry, shifting its weight in the stable. The courtyard gate groaned. Surely it would wake the household.

Careful to carry myself like a man about his master's business, I left the dwelling-stead and found myself on the road, a track of rutted dirt through frosty fields. The scent of rain reached me from the north, the moon dirty with cloud.

As I walked I groped into my soft-spun blouse and pulled out a slack coin purse. I teased open the mouth of the leather bag, and out spilled three quartered silver pennies, glittering under the dim moon.

One of them fell to the earth, and I knelt, retrieving it from among the deep, uneven ruts. It was a neatly quartered King Stephen penny. I had been careful to take only these few cut coins, despite the other sacks of silver in Sir Nigel's chamber. My hope was that I could stay at large long enough to find a future as a laborer. I could mend gates or hammer roof pegs.

If I found my freedom. And if I, over time, made my way back to Elviva, with silver I had earned with my two hands ...

I found my stride, into the fringes of forest, where farmland sliced into the oak woods.

 

Past the roofs of sleeping cottagers, past pens of sows and hen-houses boarded against foxes, the spine of the high road bore me on its rise and fall toward country I had never seen before. I had never drawn a breath which was not owed to my father or my master, and now I was indebted in all ways to my new lord, the knight. As I walked I felt the long leash tighten around my neck, my deceit. The high way had been gouged by cartwheels and wagons and pocked by the hooves of dray horse and ox, and sometimes I nearly stumbled in my new shoes.

I grew icy at the sight of the strange fields as they closed around me, and yet it was not fear of other, less reluctant robbers than myself that slowed me to a standstill. It was certainly not fear of the most famous robber, Robin Hood, that had me standing in the mountainous ruts of the king's road, hesitating.

I was betraying my father's last words to me: “Be proud, Edmund.” Proud meant virtuous, above any thought of wrongdoing. His breath so thick in his throat the words were like ice breaking underfoot, his lips ash-black and cracked.

But I continued to trudge forward, past geese pens and thick stands of young trees destined to be the roof supports for peasant homes.

I had never been so far from town.

 

Rain began to patter on my shoulders, soaking the hair of my head, making me regret that I wore no hood or cap. It was not long before the cold rain was so thick I could not see three steps before me.

I slipped on the mucky road, and cursed it. My new shoes sucked at the mud, stuck to it, each step lifting with a loud smacking sound, followed by a splash as I forged ahead. The road was slippery as goose grease, and I staggered.

I stumbled sideways, twisting my ankle.

I am not hurt, I thought, bent over with the effort of lying to myself.

My right foot was numb, that sharp painlessness that sickens the heart.

“It's not so bad,” I said aloud.

I lumbered across the muddy track, into the hazel-wood saplings along the road. Soon, I promised myself, I'll be on my way again. I just need to rest for a moment.

Wind gusted, and the rain weakened, stopped entirely.

A fox barked, a quick
snick-snick.

 

 

 

 

I woke behind a wall of stone and thorn.

A mist rose off the meadow, sunlight strong above, birds loud. A herd of cows somewhere far off bawled and lowed, and the air was earthy with the smell of wood smoke and manure.

The sun was beautiful. My foot throbbed. I was weak with hunger, my throat dry. Birds took sight of my blue squire-cloth and scolded each other, fluttering. I peered through the leafless shrubs. When I stood on my swollen foot I could hobble like the cripple who performed on market day, a sleight-of-hand artist, making hen's eggs vanish at a touch.

The roof of a peasant's cottage thrust above the thorn shrubs, a low thatch and cob-clay building, greenwood spewing smoke through a gap in the roof. Walking took a long time, my shadow lurching ahead of me like a hunchback.

The sight of a small flock of geese marching from the interior of the dwelling awakened memories of fat sizzling in a fire, steaming slices of meat on a wooden platter.

A well-fleshed young woman was driving the birds, dressed in hairy gray wool, a kerchief tied over her hair. At the sight of me she stopped.

“Good morning to you,” I said.

She made no reply.

Then she lifted one corner of her mouth in a cautious smile. Travelers were common on the road, and even peasant's sons were known to take to the King's High Way toward distant regions. A peasant who remained at large for a year and a day was no longer bound to the land; the towns were crowded with freedmen begging for their bread.

The geese stretched out their long necks and bore down upon me, braying as they came.

“Away,” I cried, in my most commanding voice. “Stand away from me!”

I scrambled onto the wall, balancing on my good leg, and the lord gander extended his neck and gave my new shoes a pinch. “Call off your geese, if you will,” I said.

The goose girl was pretty enough, and she seemed to enjoy the sight of a townsman in well-made clothes kicking at a large, hissing gander. The other geese were honking, trumpeting, blaring. The cottage door lurched open and a short, smoke-grimed man stepped forth into the sunlight, carrying an ax. He was gray-haired and thick-necked, and had not taken the time to put on his cap.

The young woman approached me without a further smile or a single word, stooping to pick up a slender stick. The gander nipped at my legging, and then seized the skirt of my tunic and would not let go, even when I kicked hard and accurately despite my injury, feathers, goose down, and goose dust drifting up into the air.

The peasant with the ax brandished it in my direction, bawling some imprecation, but by now I was ready to battle. I jumped from the wall, and gave the gander another solid kick. The bird spread his wings and ran around me in a crazy circle, sounding his alarm, the other geese honking, too, giving their champion and myself fighting room even as they seemed to grow greater in number, geese and goslings everywhere.

The axman parted them easily, and in his wake the geese settled, rearranged their feathers, suddenly matronly and gossipy. The axman seized the gander by the neck and examined its wing, stretching it out while the gander scolded and hissed. He examined the stem and stern of the gander without uttering a sound or releasing his ax.

Then the peasant let the bird go, and the gander sprinted with his wings half-cocked to the head of his retreating army. The geese swept along in the direction the young woman indicated with her long yellow switch, a tide of white and brown motley birds, bickering and celebrating.

The peasant fixed me with his eye—
You stay here.
Then he hurried to the young woman, caught up with her, and pushed her hard, without a word, sending her full length into a puddle. He kicked her, a full-strength, bone-ringing blow. It was as though this fieldman was demonstrating to me,
This, sir, is a kick.

Before I could stop myself I was at the man's side, my hand on him. I meant no injury, but shook him by the shoulder, as one might shake a dreamer, urging him from a nightmare. He pushed me away. One part of my mind cautioned me to bid him a good day and leave.

But he gave me another push, one that reminded me of Sir Nigel. I hit the peasant with my right hand, without putting much effort into it, a slap.

The man fell hard, and sat there gaping at me. He groped for his ax, and leaped to his feet.

His glance searched my garb, mud-freckled dyed wool and new buckles, wondering what a young man would be doing, out so far from town without so much as a palfrey to carry him. And without so much as a small-sword in his belt. With a right hand that could strike as well as any smith's.

He called something to the goose girl, words I could not make out. She fled back to the cottage, shouting. The sound took me back to the mornings of my boyhood, when country dwellers would greet each other across the open land with a shout, cowherds and craftsmen alike, each with his own way of giving voice to a greeting.

“I'll pay you a quartered cross-penny for a loaf, if you please,” I said. “And a wedge of cheese.”

The man put a finger to his chin. A silver penny was a year's plow-alms, a year's tax on a team of oxen. A quarter-penny was no small amount of money. By offering silver for a common meal I was close to gibbering like a madman—or a man in flight from the law.

The lusty cries of the young woman had brought a young man her age from the confines of the house. He ran hard toward her, carrying what looked like a clay-cutter, a blade designed to slice earth for cottage walls. The young man spoke briefly with the young woman and took off across the land yelling some alarm in peasant speech. The young woman hefted her skirts and sprinted off in another direction, calling, “An outlaw, an outlaw!”

As this cry drifted through the morning sun, the axman realized that it was too late to charge me the price of a prize bull for a cup of beer. Field folk were running from far around.

I brushed the axman aside and breathed a prayer. I ran painfully as fast as I was able through green goose-mud to the cottage and stepped inside.

Thick smoke stung my eyes, and the heavy, sour funk of long human habitation. A half-moon of black bread sat on a platter, beside an earthen pitcher. A wife in coarse-spun cloth stood before an infant's bunk, the babe squirming pink in the shadow. The wife held a pitchfork, and defended a kid goat with the sweep of her skirt. The kid frisked in place, held by a tether.

The brave wife stayed as she was, work-polished wooden fork level at me. She watched as I drank deeply of barley beer and tore off a healthy chunk of bread. Chewing fast and swallowing, I left one of my quartered pennies on the soot-caked firestones in the middle of the room.

The axman was waiting for me, but at his wife's cry, “Silver!” —
Selfer!
—he leaned on his ax. He said something I did not understand.

And then I worked out his heavy accent, each word becoming clear in my mind. I scampered away, geese flapping and honking before me.

 

I hobbled through the dew-thick grass to the crest of a low hill, and turned in the warm morning sun. A charger, the best sort of warhorse, was in full gallop, heading right toward me. The steed shook his head, foam flying, his mane tossing in the sunlight, brass jingling. I stood my ground.

His rider, a young knight, dragged and sawed at the reins. The horse jigged sideways, its belly wet, its flanks spiky with moisture. I put out one hand and caught the bridle as the horse thundered past, all heat and sweat, tossing and snorting. The knight was a young man I had not seen before, his face screwed into a grimace.

“Hoo!” I cried. At this word from me, the steed rolled his eyes, flattened his ears, and began to run in a straight line, back down the hill.

“Hoo,” I repeated, in a lower, more strangled voice, hanging on, dragging like a rag puppet through the grass.

The animal circled back, slowing down. His great hooves, splashed and glistening, slowed to a trot and then a walk, as my injured leg throbbed. The rider jounced, hauling on the bridle, and when the horse stood still at last the young man fell, over the horse's neck, down into the grass.

 

“Great terror!” said the young man when he could make a sound.
Grete terrour,
an accent from the west. “That horse fills me with dread.”

He wore new mail, the fabric of close-woven iron gleaming, link to link. His helmet was stout bullock leather, and he worked to get it off, shaking his blond hair, sitting up.

At his side was a broadsword. “Give me the silver,” he said, still breathless.

I hesitated.
Climb onto the horse,
said an inner voice.

“Give me the silver you stole from Sir Nigel,” said the young man. “The king's men are coming, and they want to skin you.”

I held out my hand. “I am Edmund,” I said, as though we had all day to share courtesies. “And you—?”

He gripped my hand with his leather glove, and said, “I am Hubert.”

 

The black, mounted figures of the king's men gathered at the edge of the pasture, letting their mounts breathe. They rode at an easy pace toward the sun, fanned out, encircling us.

Hubert hefted the slack bag of silver in his hand, and took a moment to tie it to his belt, beside the pommel of his sword.

“Good morning to you,” said Alan to Hubert, ignoring me entirely.

Alan let his horse take a few easy paces, until his pale, tight face looked down at me, blocking the sun. “Sir Nigel said you and Hubert were sporting,” he said. He let me see the way his eyes took in the sack of silver beside Hubert's belt. “Hunting roebuck.”

“And making a poor game of it,” said Hubert.

Alan let me see how well he knew everything, giving me a colorless smile. “Without a crossbow,” said Alan, “with only one horse, one of you lame. I would say the morning has gone badly.”