Authors: Sigmund Brouwer
This told William that too much of their plan, like all battle plans, would be determined by chance. All that was ever possible was to prepare to the fullest.
“A witch! With giant claws and fangs for teeth!”
As the boy plunged into the small clearing, William extended his arm.
The boy slammed into it. “Oooof.”
“What is this nonsense you are determined to share with the entire valley?” Despite his determination to be angry, William smiled. The boy had forgotten his panic and, newly diverted, had lifted his feet to hang from the knight’s arm as a way to test both their strengths. “And why did you wander far enough to find the witch?”
The boy dropped from William’s arm and grinned.
“You slept, and”—he motioned with his head at the girl—“she doesn’t speak and barely moves. Was I, too, supposed to act as if dead?”
“You have a sharp tongue,” the knight warned. “Perhaps I shall cut it loose and serve it as supper to the witch—if indeed she exists.”
The boy’s eyes widened as he nodded. “She appeared from behind a bush! And it is not my flesh she seeks, but yours.”
“Mine?”
“She clutched my arm and pronounced it too skinny.”
“I suppose you then informed her that you knew of fatter game and pointed down the hill to where I slept?”
“She was horrid. How else could I seek freedom? She said your flesh would prove tasty enough.”
William returned to the tree, then slid down so that his back
leaned squarely against the trunk. Finally, Hawkwood had appeared. But if the girl was not who she appeared to be, it would be best to pretend disinterest.
“A witch indeed.” William yawned. “More like an old crone wandering for herbs who even now cackles at your terror. Hmmph. Fangs and claws. What thoughts will you entertain next?”
The pickpocket boy squatted beside the knight. “Thoughts of money well spent.” He held out a grimy palm for the knight’s inspection. “I removed this from her pocket.”
William leaned forward for closer inspection. Sunlight gleamed off a thick gold coin, thick enough that it represented a month’s wages for any peasant.
The knight opened his mouth to admonish the boy, but bushes parted beside them, and before either could react, a heavy wooden cane slashed down at John’s hand. The boy pulled away, but not quickly enough, and the tip of the cane slapped his open fingers, spilling the coin to the ground.
John danced back, hugging his stung hand under his arm and biting his lip to hold back a cry of pain.
William began to roll to his feet to face the unexpected intruder, but he stopped as the cane stabbed downward between his legs and struck the ground close enough to his crotch to pin his pants.
“Move again,” screeched a voice, “and you will be less of a man.”
William wrapped one hand around the cane and grabbed the intruder’s wrist with his other hand. “Much as I admire your bravery, m’lady, it is wasted here. The coin is yours, and it shall be returned with no fight.”
He looked upward but against the sun saw only the darkened outlines of the old woman’s face.
“Very well.” The screech softened. “As it appears I have no choice, I shall trust you.”
The crone lifted the cane, but William did not release his grip until he was standing and able to ensure he would wake as much of a man tomorrow as he had today.
He could now see the woman without the glare of the sun. Black eyes glittered beneath ridged bones plucked free of eyebrows. Her face was greasy; her filthy, smudged cheekbones like lumps of blackened dough. From under her ragged shawl, straggles of oily gray hair emerged. A worn cape covered her entire hunched body, shiny where the cloth swelled on her back over the giant lump that marked her deformity.
William was impressed. Hawkwood had done a wonderful job with this disguise. Such a good job that William wondered briefly if indeed the woman was who she appeared to be.
“Shall I be in your dreams tonight?” the old woman mocked in response to the knight’s studying gaze. Then she leered, showing darkened teeth. “Or is there a reason you travel with the young wench?”
William glanced at the mute girl, who watched the entire scene with disinterest.
“The girl, it appears, travels in her own world,” William replied. “As to my dreams tonight, if you appear, I shall crack that cane across your skull.”
“Such a brave man,” she crooned, “to bully a helpless old woman.”
William laughed. “So helpless that I still tingle to think of that cane.”
“My hand,” moaned the boy. “It more than tingles.”
William frowned. “Give this woman her coin. You were nearly hung for your thievery earlier. Sore fingers is hardly enough punishment now.”
The boy bent to pick up the coin from the dirt, and the old crone cuffed him across the back of the head, then laughed a hideous shriek of delight.
John rubbed the back of his head, held out the coin, and glared.
She pocketed the coin, then pointed a bent finger at the knight. “You are an honest man,” she said. “Many others would have killed me for much less gold. I shall favor thee, then, with a gift. But you must follow.”
William shook his head.
“It is not far,” she said. “Humor an old woman.” She moved to the edge of the clearing and pushed her way through a screen of shrubbery.
William shrugged. “Stay with the girl,” he told the boy. “I shall return immediately.”
When he stepped beyond the clearing, the old crone had already moved deep enough into the forest that he could barely see her in the shadows.
“Come, come,” she beckoned. “Quickly follow.”
When he reached the shadows, she was not to be seen. He paused as his eyes searched the trees.
There, her shawl. He moved forward.
The shawl hung from a branch. A few steps farther, her cape covered a small shrub. And past that, her shabby skirt.
William hoped it had been Hawkwood in disguise. If not, the old woman was coyly disrobing as she walked. Surely, her promised gift was not herself …
Hearty laughter greeted his puzzlement.
William relaxed. The laughter came from a deep male voice. The voice’s owner stepped out from behind a nearby tree.
“William, William,” the visitor chided. “To see your face as you contemplated the old woman’s favors nearly makes our long absence worthwhile.”
William shook his head in wry amusement at the wig of horsehair the man held in his left hand and the wax he was pulling from his face.
“Hawkwood,” William said. “My lord and friend!”
“Who might you expect? The prescribed years have passed. You, as promised, made your return. Is it not fitting that I, too, keep my promise?” Hawkwood grinned, then raised his voice to the screech he had used earlier. “Shall I be in your dreams tonight?”
“Scoundrel,” William replied. “Few are the hags uglier than you. For a moment, I believed it was an old woman.”
“I shall accept that as flattery, for if you can be deceived, then I have retained some skill in the matter!”
They moved toward each other and briefly clasped arms in deep friendship. Then each stepped back to study the other.
Hawkwood, silver-haired, stood slightly shorter than the knight. Although older, his face had seen less sun and wind, and the lines did not run so deep as the knight’s. It was a lean face, almost wolflike, but softened by his smile. Stripped of the old crone’s clothing, he wore simple pants and a light vest, which although not tight, still gave ample indication of a body used to physical labor. His voice, without the screech, was gentle and low.
“It has been far too long, William. The years have treated you well.”
“We are both alive,” the knight observed dryly. “Anything more is a gift, is it not?”
Hawkwood nodded. “In our fight against the enemy, yes.”
The knight watched in silence as Hawkwood removed the last traces of disguise from his face. Hawkwood winced as he plucked at the wax imbedded in his eyebrows, wax not smudged with dirt like the false cheekbones but a shinier white to resemble the bony ridges that had fooled the knight minutes earlier.
“Would that we had time for me to wash at the stream before we speak,” Hawkwood said. “And that we had the time to converse over beer at a tavern like the old friends we are. Such luxury, however …”
“Who is there to hinder us?” William asked. “The forest has no ears. And we have much to discuss.”
Hawkwood shook his head. “You must return to your young companions shortly. They cannot suspect I was anything less than a wandering old woman.”
“They are children!”
“Look more closely at the girl, William. She is almost a woman. And, I’m afraid, more.”
“Yes,” William said. “I have my fears that she has been sent by the other side.”
“Hear my thoughts later on that subject.” Hawkwood began to pace a tight circle. “Were your travels difficult?”
“No, m’lord. Exile still provides the secrecy and refuge we cannot have here. And in the southern half of England, none questioned me.” William shrugged. “I knew, of course, as I traveled north that word of my arrival would reach the enemy. But also that it would reach you and that you would thus seek me, as you have. But this far from Magnus, I thought myself yet safe from the enemy.”
Hawkwood spat. “Nowhere in England is now safe. The Templars have been destroyed, and all these years they have served as protection.”
“With the gallows rope around my neck, the same thought occurred to me. I wondered if perhaps the plan we laid those years ago had failed, and that you might be dead by now.”
Hawkwood spat again. “There have been moments, William. Their power grows. It was the play of a child for them to arrange the chalice in your horse’s saddlebag and to let it be known that you were a Templar and a heretic.”
“And child’s play for
you
to arrange the time of the hanging?”
Now Hawkwood laughed. “The years haven’t dulled you.”
The knight sighed, recalling his fight with Thomas. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. But I find it difficult to believe that the eclipse occurred when it did because of happenstance or because of a divine miracle that presumes any importance for my scarred hide.”
“Tut, tut, William. We are not without our allies among the powerful. As you surmised, I did indeed arrange the time of the hanging based on our ancient charts. But is it not God who arranges the stars? A century will pass before the sky darkens again. We could not have asked Him for more in the spring of this year.”
William waved away the protest. “You would have found another method had there been no eclipse. That was you as the old man, correct? And Thomas as the specter?”
“It was Thomas. Had he not appeared, I would have stepped forward anyway to use the eclipse as a way to save your life.” Hawkwood laughed. “Imagine how Thomas felt when the sun disappeared. I feel pity for how bewildered he must be at the way the event turned for him.” Hawkwood resumed his pacing. He stepped in and out of the shadows so that the dappled outlines of leaves appeared and reappeared across his lean face. “Sarah trained him well, did she not?”
The knight nodded. “It took all my willpower to pretend surprise when he found me this afternoon. He has grown much since I last saw him. But I was unable to discover where Sarah raised him. Isn’t that irony? She thought we were dead. She was so skillful at hiding herself from the enemy that not even we could find her.”
“You know my grief has been a difficult burden,” Hawkwood said. His voice became heavy, much heavier than his years. “Yes, against all odds, the boy has grown to manhood. We need what she has hidden, and surely Thomas knows where it is.”
“The enemy wants it as desperately as we do.” William studied Hawkwood’s face. “We finally, however, have renewed hope. I have returned safely, you are here, the boy appeared as Sarah was instructed to teach him, and Magnus awaits its angel.”
Hawkwood closed his eyes and winced. “But if Sarah were alive, we would not need to play this game. The books would be ours, and we would know whether to trust Thomas instead of wondering if they have planted him as elaborate bait for us.”
“And if Sarah were alive, Thomas could take us both to her, and you would be reunited after all these years.” The knight placed a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder. They remained in that silence for several moments before Hawkwood continued.
“I repeat, William, without Sarah we cannot know if the enemy reached Thomas after her death and converted him to their cause.”
William raised an index finger to emphasize his next words. “Is it not significant that he sought me out at the gallows? Only she would have instructed him to expect me.”
“I have wondered the same. Yet because we don’t know where she hid him to raise him, nor when she died, we cannot make assumptions.
What if his teaching was barely begun? What if she died when he was still far too young for the passage of rites where a boy is trusted with knowledge of our cause? And what if they found him instead?”
William closed his eyes in thought. “If not from her, then how could he know of me? Magnus fell long before his birth.”
“I pray, of course, that he acts upon Sarah’s instructions,” Hawkwood agreed. “Yet the enemy plays a masterful game. It is equally if not more conceivable that he has been sent forth to lure us, that he is one of them. Did you hint anything of our plan to him?”
William shook his head. “I played the fool. As demonstration of my ignorance, I told him I needed proof he was the specter.”
Their next moments of contemplation were interrupted by a high-pitched cry several hundred yards away. “Wiiiilllliam!”
“The pickpocket,” William said. “We
do
have little time.”
“He is a bright one,” Hawkwood said. “It served my purpose to let him steal the coin, for I then had reason to visit you. But his fingers are so light, I almost did not detect his actions. He is crafty and has spirit. If this were the old days, we could consider teaching him in our ways.”
“I have an immediate affection for him too,” William said. “Except for now, because he searches for me, and it seems you have much to say. What of Thomas? What of the girl?”