Authors: Geoff Smith
‘I sat and turned these ideas over in my mind, but quickly became convinced of their truth – I could find no other explanation to fit the existing facts. So I sank down, curling up my body on the ground, wishing that I might sleep, to awaken later and find I had only dreamed these events which had torn my world apart in the course of a single dreadful day. But I could not rest, and knew that at any time the king’s men might come to search for me in the forest. I must move, and distance myself, for how could I expect anyone to believe the wild story I had to tell? I must accept that my old life was lost to me, and my guilt would seem to be confirmed to others by my very act of running. But then I saw there remained one last chance for me to prove my innocence and regain my name – to pursue the real murderer. I must hunt down the miscreant whose polluted blood ran within my own veins. This idea at once impressed itself upon me with a startling clarity. My father’s cruel actions had unleashed a brute upon the world. The wretched circumstances of his life were indeed tragic, and I might have felt a sympathy for him, but his body was too grossly deformed, his mind too damaged, for me to allow myself any such emotion. I had seen too clearly in those few moments the hateful and violent nature which burned in his wicked soul. It bore a spite to embrace all mankind. He had blasted my life into ruins and would so afflict the lives of others if left to roam free. It would indeed be an act of mercy to all – himself included – to destroy him like a mad dog. And then, any who looked upon his hideous corpse would surely accept my assertion that here was my father’s true murderer? Yet I saw now how this matter went even beyond establishing my innocence. It went deeper still. For I also knew this task was mine alone, allotted to me by the Fates themselves. It was a matter of duty, honour and blood, and now the only legacy my father had bequeathed to me.
‘I felt convinced the wretch would not return again to the cottage, for he now knew this lair to be discovered, and I sensed in him a devilish cunning. And so, driven from his hiding place, it surely would not be difficult to run him down, for how could such a creature go undetected for long in the world of men? But I must also go with caution and remember that from this time onward I would be an outlaw and a fugitive.
‘At last I stood up and began to move, following along the way where my twin had fled. After several hours the woods grew thinner and I was able to mount my horse and ride, but now the night began to fall, and I knew it would be impossible to continue my search in the dark. It was as I reached the edge of the woods and entered onto an open stretch of land that I heard an outcry of distant voices raised in desperation and alarm. As I rode towards them I saw in the fading light ahead a small settlement, a farm which lay in near darkness save for several men who moved within its confines and carried lighted torches. It was as I approached them that a dog ran at me, barking furiously, then I heard a woman’s voice shriek out above the rest.
‘ “A joint of bacon!
A joint of bacon!
”
‘I knew a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I rode up to the men and called out to them, and they drew forward, armed with spears, mattocks and knives as they peered at me through the dimness, their breaths gasping and their dull eyes glinting with shock and horror in the yellow glow of the flames.
‘ “What has happened here?” I said, although truly I feared the matter needed no explanation. They stood in silence, staring up at me nervously, their faces taut with rage and grief until finally one stepped forward and said:
‘ “An attack, lord. It came with the dusk. It burst into our father’s cottage as he sat with our mother to eat…”
‘ “It?” I said.
‘ “Yes,” he answered, his voice close to breaking. “Our mother says… it was not a man but a giant. A monster. A
thing
of evil omen…”
‘I looked back at him, struck mute as I saw that his words were those my own father, in his mad fit of rage, had thrown at
me
.
‘ “…and our father rose to stand before our mother and protect her, but the monster carried a thick stave of oak – we think taken from our barn – and fell with devil’s fury on him, and beat in his head before it snatched up their meal and was gone. We heard our mother’s screams and came, but too late… we saw only a great shadow fleeing in the distance. We feared to pursue it into the darkness.”
‘ “Which way did it run?”
‘He pointed with a trembling finger out into the forest, as the distraught voice of the woman rose up again from somewhere behind him.
‘ “He is dead… for a joint of boiled bacon!”
‘ “I give you my oath,” I said to those men, as wrath gathered in my heart, “that I will hunt down this monster and destroy him. Your blood-feud is also mine, and I swear to you I will not stop until all our wrongs have been avenged.”
‘I turned my horse and rode away into the night.
‘So began the mission which would consume my whole existence. It became my life’s only object, my singular fixation. The path was long and hard. The seasons came and went as I journeyed through sun and rain and snow, across fen and moor and forest, through different lands, finding and losing then finding again the trail of the one I sought. I followed every dark whisper and rumour, hearing fearful, half-known tales repeated of a lone raider, huge and terrible, who preyed upon the lonely homesteads and farms, coming silently with the night to gain his sustenance: to attack, steal and murder with an inhuman ferocity and strength. But always he eluded me and remained ahead of me, leaving in his wake only a trail of atrocities to taunt me. I had been wrong to suppose it would be easy to find him. I had failed to imagine the reality of it. At night, when I travelled over high ground, I would look far out at the distant flickering of camp fires in the remote scattered villages, like tiny pale stars within the great black firmament of the wilderness which encompassed them. Those vast hostile wastelands were his domain, from which he would rise then vanish like a phantom moving between the mortal world and the realm of the dead. And my task grew slowly to seem daunting and hopeless. But forever I must move on, never daring to stay in any place for long, shunning the company of other men for fear that my own dark history should overtake me.
‘My horse sickened and died, and so I continued on foot, living the best I could, stealing when I must. My appearance grew so wild and ragged that men often feared me and fled at my approach, until it seemed to me that I had come to appear barely different to others, from the one I pursued. His shadow had indeed consumed me utterly. Now I had to gain my information by means of menace and threat – by the fear I inspired. And gradually I lost all thoughts of my old existence and of proving my innocence – by now my title and estates would have passed to some other, and I… I no longer cared about them. My mind was fixed only upon my enemy, and life itself had come to mean nothing to me beyond the consummation of my final revenge.
‘Then at last the trail grew cold as my adversary seemed to vanish without trace, and for many seasons I wandered without hearing any word of him. But now my mission had become my life and to give it up was unthinkable to me. Finally I journeyed back to the northernmost reaches of my own land, where a long while earlier – I could no longer keep track of time – I had last heard fearful reports of him. From there I went up to where the woodlands of northern Mercia darkened into the great forest of the Celtic land of Elmet.
‘One night, as I slept deep in the forest, somewhere close to the Mercian border, I was woken by the sound of a distant voice rising up out of the darkness. Growing curious, I drew my sword and moved cautiously among the trees into the night, guided onward only by the voice ahead. Then I spied the light of a burning torch, and the words grew clearer, as I recognised them as being spoken in my native Anglish. It was the voice of a man which rose and fell as he recited an invocation to a god.
‘ “I face the east and pray for favour,
I call to the coming dawn.
Hear us, great protector.
Deliver us from what blights the land,
From the terror that walks in the night.
Look with favour on our offering of blood.”
‘I stepped up to a small forest glade, and raised my sword as I saw a group of four men standing inside it. As I went, fallen twigs cracked under my feet, and these men turned to face me, their eyes wide with fright. Before I could move or speak, all four combined their voices into a single cry of panic and terror, and then they were away, the torch bearer flinging his brand onto the ground as they scattered beyond my sight. As I stared after them, I began to consider the words of the chant I had heard uttered. From what dark power had they prayed for deliverance? And what was their offering of blood?
‘I moved to where the discarded torch lay still burning, snatching it up, then began to search the ground around me; until I came upon a human form there, lying prostrate, silent and motionless, in an effort to remain unseen. As I approached it, it began to wriggle forward, struggling in its efforts to rise, as I observed that its hands were bound behind its back, and that a length of rope was hung about its neck, beneath a wild tangle of hair. At first I took it for a child, as its frame looked small and slight, but as I drew near it turned its head to look up at me with wild and frantic eyes as it bared its teeth in a snarl; and I saw that it was a young woman. Her dark hair probably marked her as a Celt, and she was clad in the rough single garment of a slave. Plainly her life was to have been given as an offering, and I felt a dull sense of shock, for I had not supposed that even crude forest dwellers, such as those men had been, were so primitive that they still practised human sacrifice.
‘ “Do not be afraid,’ I called out to her. “I will not hurt you.”
‘I took her arm and raised her up, but she struggled and cried out, and I tightened my grip as I brought up my sword to cut through her bonds. Then I turned her about to face me. Ragged as she was, pale and trembling from her fearful ordeal, I was struck by her comeliness, but more by her appearance of fierceness and courage as she stared back at me, allowing no sign of fear to show. I released her, and stepped away to reassure her that I meant no harm. As I stood, hardly knowing what to say, she spoke out in the babble of her own tongue; then, seeing I did not understand her, she began to talk in muddled Anglish, presumably learned from her time as a captive.
‘ “Those man say I be bad slave. More trouble than worth. You no want to keep me. Angle man come raid, catch me out in forest, take me from free and keep me bound, shut me in place under ground, or else say I run. Or I steal knife to cut throat in night. They say true. I be glad, kill them all. Catia
is
bad slave. You take Catia for slave, one day she kill
you.
”
‘I was astonished by her words, or rather how she spoke them with such defiance in spite of her desperate circumstances. It was born of a pride which had endured undaunted even in the face of such terrible adversities. Her spirit seemed to dwarf the bravery of every warrior I had ever known.
‘ “Catia,” I said. “I am Cynewulf, and I give you my promise that I would not try to bind such a soul as yours.” She looked at me strangely, and the fire in her eyes was then diminished by a look of confusion. Probably she had expected nothing but harshness from any man of the Anglecynn. So I said to her slowly: “You have your freedom, to return to your own people.” Still she stared back, and seemed unable to comprehend. “You are free,” I said, for it appeared I could not convince her.
‘ “Not free,” she whispered at last. “But bound to you, bound to…” she struggled to find the word “…
debt
.”
‘ “No,” I said. “You owe me no obligation, except to go from here before those men come back.” She reached out to grasp my arm, pulling me along with her as she hurried away, eager perhaps to remain under my protection. “But why did they bring you out here?” I said to her as we went. “Why would they do such a barbarous thing?”
‘ “They fear dark spirit in forest,” she said. “They fear devil-man.”
‘I halted in my tracks as I heard these words, which I had long feared I might never hear again. Into my heart there crept a fresh sense of hope. I reached out and grasped her shoulders, looking into her eyes.
‘ “You are a child of this forest,” I said to her. “Tell me now if you know where this devil is said to dwell. The place that he haunts.” She gave no reply, but I was certain I saw my answer hidden in her eyes. “You must take me there,” I told her. “You must.”
‘For the first time I saw a look of fear creep upon her. Perhaps she merely grew alarmed by my sudden and frantic change of manner, yet I believed it was something more than that. She firmly shook her head in refusal. “Catia,” I said. “I would not ask this of you were it not a thing which means more to me than life itself. You have said you owe me a debt for your life, and this is the only way for you to repay it.”
‘She stood a while longer in her doubt and indecision, before finally she gave a reluctant nod and replied:
‘ “You come. I show.”
‘We walked for a time, the flame from the torch our only light within the utter blackness under the forest canopy. But at length we came to a wide clearing, and I saw the night sky, streaked with thin grey clouds beneath a faint spread of twinkling stars. Then we were climbing a long and meandering pathway up the slope of a wooded hill, whose incline grew steeper as we went. I could sense Catia’s gathering disquiet in the deep stillness and silence, and slowly I came to know this sensation within myself, for the night began to feel ever more strange to me as we went higher, and the chill in the air increased. All that had long grown despondent in me warned me now against my growing feelings of anticipation, as I reflected that this path would likely lead me to nowhere but the place of a local superstition: some old story of a ghost or goblin in a haunted glade. I had suffered many such disappointments before. But I must pursue them, these legends and bogey tales, for it seemed that they were all my life had become and perhaps now all it would ever be.