The Ravens’ Banquet (18 page)

And then an almighty blow from an unseen foe smote me full on the helm, spinning it round and nearly snapping my neck. I reeled and felt my legs disappear beneath me. The trees spun in front of my eyes and I was falling. The helm came off as I hit the soft earth, and I lay on my back, head pointing down the hill. My breastplate rode up and struck my chin and the bitter taste of my own blood filled my mouth. An arm reached down and jerked me up by the stock that I wore knotted around my neck and I raised my arm weakly to stop the blow that I knew must fall. It seemed that a giant was holding me fast in his grip, rising up above me ten feet tall. The strange language filled my ears, the Croats calling one to another.

Slowly, the giant released my scarf, and I sank back down on my back. I watched him bow gracefully to one side and crumple to the carpet of pine needles at our feet. Propped up on an elbow, blood coursing down my forehead and nose, I saw another Croat near me scream and clutch at the shaft of an arrow buried in his shoulder. He nearly tripped over my legs as he grasped at a tree, tearing its mossy coat away. Yet a moment later he arched up in agony, a second bolt through his back.

I could not hold myself up any longer and fell back again. I was near in a full swoon but somehow righted myself and pulled up my knees to my belly. Then, I dragged myself forward, trying to get as far away from this fight as I could. My ears began to ring, ring such that all the cries of the soldiers died away. Dark earth filled my clawing hands as I strove to crawl, a wounded worm seeking the cover of the earth. My eyes beheld close up the rotted vegetation, the rough gnarled trunks of the ancient trees.

And then I spied a small creature not a foot from my face: a mottled brown toad. He was joined by another of his brethren, and then another, until I was surrounded by toads. The memory of my old dream, cast in a fevered brain months ago, came to me in that moment. The dream of the beast that lay in the cavern, the monstrous toad that spat out silver at my feet, that spoke to me in a tongue I knew not. The toads stared at me. And then the shadow of another figure fell across my prone body. I cocked my bloody head to look on who it was that stood over me. In my uncertain gaze, I glimpsed roughshod feet and the skirt of a woman. And in her arms – for surely a woman it was – she cradled not a babe but a hunter’s crossbow. I felt myself falling again and then I knew no more.

W
HEN
I
AWOKE
, I was for a moment convinced of my own death. I lay in my grave, the close darkness around me giving way far above to faint light, light showing its way through the unpacked earth above me. Yet, as I drew more to consciousness, I saw that it was the roof of a bower that lay over me, weak sunlight peeking through the cracks. The strong but not unpleasant smell of the poultice that lay across my brow had brought me back to the earthly plane. My head ached as though with drink. I remembered then what had happened.

I brushed my arm along my chest as I lay there. To my shaking hand the touch was damp, of sodden cloth. My armour was gone but I was still in my bloody coat and doublet and my mud-stained breeches. The little pouch lay still upon my breast, secured by its leather necklace. My hand curled around it, the sound of the little twigs inside crackling in my grasp. The memory of Anya’s words came to me again.

“This charm will preserve you...”

I stripped the poultice from my brow and turning on my side, struggled to rise from the straw mat that I lay upon. The effort brought forth a violent retching and I fell back and held my head. I tried again though, after a bit, and my stomach complained a little less. Wobbling, I managed to get to my feet and stumbled out of the hovel and into the light of day. My eyes were yet not focused upon the scene before me but I could spy a group of people ahead and the rising plume of a cooking fire. I was in a clearing, still surrounded by forest, and around me were scattered half a dozen huts rough-fashioned of sapling trunks and topped with roofs of branches and moss.

Those around the fire saw me and a few came forward to greet me. I recognised my soldiers and Christoph was among them too. All were a ragged band of scarecrows, clothing fouled by weather, by earth, by sweat, and by blood. And it struck me full then, that I was looking on the defeated and broken remains of what had once been a whole company of harquebusiers.

One fellow helped me limp over to a tree stump that served as a stool. I lowered myself down and touched my scalp to feel a great bump raised on my crown. A peasant woman, hard-favoured and wizened, stirred something in the great black cook pot that lay on the flames, the tongues of which began to warm me where I sat. She glanced at me but said nothing and kept to her cooking. Other women I now spied, arms laden with faggots, walking through the clearing. They wore sad, rough spun clothing of brown skirts and leather bodices. And the woman who laboured over the stew pot wore a shirt of the coarsest linen, stained and torn.

A soldier, one who I knew was named Hartmann, proffered a cup of water to me. I clasped it, brought it to my lips, and drank it down in one. I counted five of my comrades, not including myself, and managed to spy five peasants, none of whom had taken any notice of my arrival.

“What time of day is it?” I asked.

It was Christoph who replied in his usual flat voice.

“It’s past the midday. After you were brained, you lay that day and all the last night as dead as drunk.”

“The Croats?” I asked.

“All slain. Or run off. But not by the likes of us. These womenfolk here did the business and never a thing like it have I seen afore. Not in many a season of campaigning. By Christ’s blood, these womenfolk shot them down with hunting bow like pigs in a thicket.”

“I remember now,” I said, the smell of the pot making me of a sudden very hungry. “I saw two Croats shot as I lay on the ground and I spied a woman with a crossbow just before I passed out.”

“Aye. But more than one. I think they were about six of them, all armed with bows. We lost two to the Croats as the fray started. I saw you take down your man but you were set on by two other devils. The one who charged me I took down with a shot, and then I brained one of yours with the carbine. Then the bolts were flying about the wood and I thought we were being attacked from behind by more Imperials. But it was these strange creatures.” The last words were accompanied by a mistrustful look as he twisted his neck to survey the peasants that surrounded us.

I rubbed my aching eyes. “Why did they not slay us as well?”

Christoph shook his head.

“I don’t know why. After you fell, and the Croats were dispatched, they stood and stared at us for a time. One of the women spoke telling us to come away with them lest more soldiers discover us. I was about to leg it down the hill but these other cow-brained fools followed straight away like so many stray dogs.”

“You shit-mouthed liar!” shouted one of the soldiers, rushing forward to grasp at Christoph.

Christoph gripped his arm and sent him sprawling with a kick.

“Hold!” I cried out, leaping up to halt the two. My head throbbed anew and I nearly fell to my knees.

Christoph grunted and the soldier slowly got up and backed away.

“Well… aye,” grumbled Christoph, looking at the others. “There was nothing else for it, was there? We discovered you were still alive and carried you to this place.”

“How many are they?” I asked.

“Twenty,” said Hartmann.

“Bollocks,” muttered Christoph. “I’ve counted twenty and seven, all told.”

“The menfolk, where are they?” I asked.

Christoph smiled one of his ill-natured smiles while the others shook their heads.

“There be none that we’ve seen,” said Christoph. “Now that ain’t natural. There’s
something
amiss here, that I swear to you.”

The woman who was tending the cooking pot called over to us, speaking words I little understood.

“She’s offering us food,” said Hartmann. “They all speak like Saxons up here, talking out of their arses.”

“Tell me, Englishman, what
are
they doing up here?” said Christoph as he walked to the fire again.

We devoured the coney stew and in truth would have leapt at a crust so famished were we all. No one spoke as we fed our bellies but I thought on what had befallen us. I saw again in my mind’s eye poor Balthazar struck down, the Croat’s blade swinging in a flashing arc. And what of Andreas, Jacob, Tollhagen, and all the others? Had they fared any better than he?

“Where are our weapons?” I asked quietly as we sat together on the hard bare ground near the fire.

Three of the soldiers appeared to ignore me, more intent upon licking the last of the broth from their bowls.

Christoph tossed his bowl on the ground and wiped his greasy mouth with the sleeve of his unbuttoned doublet. “We have some, but not weapons for all,” he mumbled.

“What of my sword?” I asked, only then remembering it.

“We have it,” replied Christoph. “Over with two others in one of the hovels. I have my carbine and a few cartridges.”

It was only then I remembered my pistol, thrust into my boot before I started to climb the slope. But, of course, it was no longer there, having tumbled out during the fight.

I looked around us again, watching the peasant women carrying wood, buckets, and moving in and out of their hovels. Were they goatherds? I saw no beasts of any sort. And why would farmers live in a wood? I could only think that they were charcoal-makers, their menfolk off into deeper forest to bring out larger boughs of fallen oak or beech.

Hartmann saw me watching. “This be no hamlet that I have seen the likes of. Where are the children? There are none to be found. And where hide the menfolk? I’ll tell you what goes on here: these be masterless women. There be
no
menfolk.”

One of the others cackled, the implied lewdness of the remark setting his imagination to fire. A nod from a comrade and raised brows proved the point was taken.

“We must speak with them,” I said. “And we have to find out what has befallen the army. I don’t wish to stay up here for longer than we need to regain some strength.”

One of the soldiers, his head hanging, spoke softly. “I have no other rigging than what hangs off of me and even this I’ve pissed and shat in. I only want to find our camp. I want to go back”

No one else spoke.

“Fear not,” I said, “We’ll start down for Lütter village come morning.”

And as the sun moved across the trees, we sat and filled our bellies again, and drinking our fill of the clear water that the old woman offered up to us. But the other women, those who had banished our pursuers, were nowhere to be seen. A black pig rooted round the camp, the only creature that was intent on business. Christoph directed the toe of a boot at its snout whenever it wandered too close.

I roused myself after a time, and being taken of a necessary, made my way out from the encampment and into the forest to take my ease. My head had not yet ceased its clamouring, and with slow measure I ventured into the wood, moss-encrusted branches snapping under my feet as so many old bones.

Like a blind old fool, I crouched with arms stretched out before me, warding the tendrils of greenery that sought to bind me.

The forest floor slanted gradually downwards and to my left, covered in ancient beech, oak, pine, alder, and a dozen other trees not familiar to my knowledge. I was a drunkard, dizzy, tottering from arbour to arbour, and grappling for support among these silent and unmoved denizens.

It grew very quiet and even the sound of my unsteady footfalls seemed to be swallowed up by the soft ground beneath me. Here and there were black pools of stagnant water, stinking in the summer heat, and reminders of the sodden damp season of campaigning I had endured. I had, in those moments, become aware, or more exactly awakened to, a feeling that I was being watched. A common crotchet to any man who’s been alone in a wood. And the strangeness of it quickly set the short hairs of my neck standing up. I shivered in my sweat-soaked doublet and paused for a moment.

Here, among the green and the muck seemed as good as any place to shit, and I untrussed the few tasselled points that were yet unbroken and slid down my breeches. Holding fast the tree in front, I squatted and did my business. Abusing a shrub close at hand, I tore off some leaves and cleaned my backside. While tying my breeches again, the nagging conceit hit me full again that I was under the gaze of someone or something.

I turned back the way I believed I had come, and reached out to a sapling to pull myself along. The closeness of the forest now descended on me most strong, and I halted. Stillness and shadows filled my view, the sun desperate to convince me that it yet lived, somewhere above, beyond the forest.

As I raised a foot to move forward again, the forest floor quickly rose up in front of me; a tangle of briar, verdant ivy, black roots, and rotting leaves, animated by a hand unseen. There, a few paces in front of my face, it stood, barring my way. Its mane of ivy rustled as it pulled itself up to full height and I stood fast, struck dumb with terror.

As tall as a man, it sent forth a stench of turned earth and corruption. I looked into a dark visage, the face of some man thing that poked from this mantle of vegetation. Its nostrils and mouth sprouted running vines that spilled downwards while the eyes beheld me, black and unmoving. And when it spoke, it was the voice of Samuel that issued from its lips.

“Where goes Master Treadwell?” came the words, the voice dull and muffled. “Has the bread of Life grown stale for thee, these past days?”

“Sweet Jesus, Samuel, why do you hound me?” I said in a dry whisper. I half believed that it was my head wound that spoke and was the cause of this thing that stood before me. Yet even the rubbing of my eyes would not rid me of the sight of him.

“Leave me alone,” I pleaded. “You’re the one who tried to kill
me
! What could I have done to save you? You abandoned me!”

The sweet smell of the Green Man made my stomach sick. I leaned against a lichenscarred tree and closed my eyes. Still, Samuel remained.