In The Grip Of Old Winter (16 page)

Peter’s stomach tightened.
Everything Bear said sounded scary. “Why didn’t Almina use the seal-amulet when
the carrier gave it to her?”

Bear sat silent before he said,
“Reasons, like threads, are weaved by Time and their joining cannot be
determined. Strands may touch that afford a glimpse of some experience, but
that will not be understood until all the strands are woven as one. When small,
Almina appeared to us, confused and frightened, and the seal-amulet seemed
nothing more than a talisman to send her through time. She did not show it to
us because she did not desire to learn its meaning. That we might have
questioned her deeper about how she came to us through the Ages is our
carelessness, because we did not discern the seal-amulet’s presence or its
renewed potency.”

Peter hoisted the backpack
onto his shoulders. “But why didn’t she keep it?”

“I suspect the carrier to
feature in that telling.”

“Like when he tried to take
it off me?”

Bear faced Peter. “That is
so.”

“It’s weird how the carrier
keeps giving it to the wrong people. He must see that we aren’t the spae-wife -
well, not me anyway.”

“I do not know what he sees
and the spae-wife is known to take on different forms.” Bear gazed back to the
fire. “The spae-wife worked him to meet her demands. I discern that she taught
him to retrieve the seal-amulet, should it be long-forgotten. If that is so, he
has learnt the lesson well.”

“He doesn’t understand that
it has to go back to her though, does he?”

“She might be lost to his
sight if her physical form is incomplete.” Bear stood. “He works hard to return
it to her, more this season than in seasons past, another step to my
understanding that she walks once more.”

Peter joined Bear on the
other side of the fallen tree. “The carrier crept up behind me just before I
chased away the barghest, but I saw him and he ran away.”

“He is bolder than before.”

“Why did he attack dad,
though?”

Bear paced towards the fire
and all the skin-walkers faced the flames. “That is strange. Go now. Keep the
seal-amulet close. Return at will. Have courage.” The skin-walkers raised their
arms and the fire flared and as the flames crackled, Peter heard again the
melodic notes from the music in his dream and the harmonies slid from one to
another without any break.

He ran through the trees to
the charred branch and just before he touched it, he shut his eyes and said,
“Leonor.”

The music diminished as if
swept away by a great wind. He opened his eyes and faced the manor. His heart
thumped. An outlaw crouched no more than two metres away, his attention focused
towards the track, a bow gripped in one hand and a quiver of arrows slung
across his back.

Peter sank to his knees as
slow and as quiet as possible. He peered through the trees and picked out more
outlaws, some hidden under bushes, another kneeling, one up in the boughs of a
tree with a leg curled around a branch.

Peter lay on his stomach and
half-crawled, half-slithered, backwards, away from the charred branch. He
glanced towards the manor and saw, up on the tower, four outlaws. No one spoke,
yet a tense, expectant, ‘somethings about to happen’ atmosphere, tingled as
alive as lightning.

Oswald and Leonor must have
fled. Tobias, on Oswald’s horse, ridden to Eorl Bosa. These outlaws, on
Wulfwyn’s command, taken the manor and if he remembered Wulfwyn’s plan in the
correct order, pretended to take Oswald and Leonor hostage. Now they waited for
Eorl Bosa, with however many men-at-arms mustered at short notice, to
counter-attack.

He crawled further away. The
outlaws, when he picked them out at this distance, proved harder to spot. He reached
the exposed roots of a horse chestnut and, careful to stay quiet, slipped off
the backpack.

A distant rook cawed. Then,
to his left, leaves rustled and he jumped. Two black eyes glared back at him,
whiskers twitched and a long tail quivered. A red squirrel, like the ones in
picture books, watched him, its mouth distorted by a large bulge. He’d never
seen a red squirrel before. Smaller than a grey, its dark red fur gleamed. It
leapt away and legs apart, scampered up the tree.

He reached into his pocket
and pulled out the seal-amulet. Cold and blank, he ran his finger over its
smooth surface. What made it glow? What triggered the appearance of the silver
marks? It was as if it needed a button, or a switch. Did the spae-wife use it
from a distance? Did the carrier tell her who had it, now?

His fingers tingled and, like
a radiator when it first comes on, a hint of warmth blossomed across the
seal-amulet’s surface. In the distance, there came the steady
thud-thud,
thud-thud
of horses’ hooves on frozen earth.

Peter peered over the roots
of the horse chestnut and though he half-stood and shifted sideways, the tangle
of bushes and trees made it impossible to see anything. Not a single outlaw
remained in sight. He sat down and cupped the seal-amulet in both hands.

The surface glowed red and
the silver marks emerged as pale shadows that faded in and out of view. Not one
glowed more than any other. The tingle spread through his hands and into his
wrists.

The horses came closer and
some of them snorted as if they smelt danger. He also heard the clink of metal.
A voice boomed, sudden and loud and the
thud-thud
of the hooves ceased. Peter
guessed they’d reached the top of the track and now had the manor in view.

Wulfwyn’s plan involved the
outlaws left behind at the camp to close in on Eorl Bosa’s men after they
passed; a pincer movement that meant to trap them all. How many men did Eorl
Bosa bring?

The silver marks revolved in
opposing circles as if unable to settle.

“Come forth,” bellowed the
voice. “Lay down your arms.”

No answering cry replied.

“In the name of King
William...”

There came the
swish
of arrows and several men shouted and horses whinnied before the
thuds
as the arrows found their targets. Knights urged their mounts forwards with
terrible cries and the outlaws answered with a ferocious roar.

An outlaw darted around a
tree as a knight charged and jabbed him with his spear. The outlaw escaped and,
with so little room to manoeuvre, the knight cursed as he tried to pull his
horse round. Another outlaw dropped out of the tree and landed on the horse’s
back. He gripped the knight with one arm and they both tumbled off. As they fell,
the outlaw drew a black-bladed knife and struck. The horse stamped and snorted
and sprang away towards the track.

Shouts erupted from the
manor, the
clang
of metal, a flurry of
thumps
.

The seal-amulet warmed in his
hands. The marks flared, more obvious now, yet not one stayed constant;
impossible to touch any of them, though his finger hovered over the
seal-amulet’s surface. He didn’t know what any of them meant.

A knight leapt into view,
sword drawn and with a large tear-shaped shield that covered most of his body.
He struck the bushes with ferocious swipes and jumped to the right and then to
the left to avoid any surprise attack as he came closer and closer.

Peter scrambled over the
roots and hid behind the other side of the tree.

The knight’s breath rasped
with the effort of his mighty swings. Closer still and then, with a grunt, the
knight halted and the
swish
and
crack
as wood splintered under
the sword’s edge, ceased.

Peter swallowed. His
backpack, he’d left it behind in full view. He willed the seal-amulet to show
him what to do, for if he ran the knight might cut him down in an instant.

A loud blast from a horn echoed
through the trees. Its strident note rose above the battle’s clamour and the
fighting stopped.

***

The knight grunted again and Peter
held his breath. Silence ticked by from one painful second to the next, until
the leaves rustled and the knight’s footsteps receded. Peter dived around the
tree and grabbed his backpack.

Horses cantered down the
common way and the horn sounded once more. The knights, Peter guessed it must
be them, cheered. He half-rose, desperate for a glimpse of the force that had
just arrived. It must be Eorl Bosa’s men because, apart from Oswald’s, he
didn’t remember seeing any horses in Wulfwyn’s camp.

The horses speed never
slackened and this time Peter caught a momentary flash as they galloped up the
track towards the manor. The outlaws didn’t stand a chance, faced with so many
well-armed and armoured men.

A voice bellowed a command
and Peter saw two knights push their way through bushes and jump tree roots as
they returned to the track. What had happened to Wulfwyn’s reinforcements from
the camp? Had these knights caught them on the common way? Or if the outlaws
had hidden, they might be very close, ready to counterattack.

The horn blew for a third
time. Shouts and cries erupted from the manor. An outlaw slipped behind a tree
not far from where Peter hid. He held a bow, though the quiver on his back
didn’t hold a single arrow. A second outlaw rose up from the ground close to
the first and they talked, heads together, with quick glances around the tree
and over their shoulders. The first outlaw cupped his hands over his mouth and
called like a rook’s raucous squawk.

Peter studied the
seal-amulet. He wanted to help the outlaws, but he didn’t know how. Why did the
seal-amulet glow and the marks show if they didn’t mean to be used? He’d made
it work before, why not now?

He glanced up. More outlaws
crowded around the tree. A gash dripped blood from one man’s forehead. Another
held his arm and the fingers, squeezed tight around the wound, were smeared red.
The outlaws whispered in frantic bursts, pointed towards the manor, shook their
heads in frustration or nodded agreement. Wulfwyn’s plan must have failed and
now a decision had to be made without his guidance. Where was Wulfwyn?

The noise from the manor
ceased and as one, the outlaws peered in that direction. That decided their
action. With stealth and speed, they made for the common way.

Peter thrust the seal-amulet
into his pocket, pulled the backpack over his shoulders and followed. This part
of Wulfwyn’s plan might have failed, but because the seal-amulet saved Oswald,
Leonor must have escaped, unless Eorl Bosa had discovered the outlaw’s camp and
captured them both.

He kept a safe distance from
the outlaws and made for the bank and the steep descent. Twice more he heard
the rook call and when he reached the top of the bank and saw the outlaws, away
to his left as they slipped and slid over the edge, their numbers had doubled.

The bank’s steep side made
walking down it impossible. Peter staggered and tripped from tree to tree,
running into each one to stop the rapid momentum of a downward rush where
control proved impossible and might result in a bad fall.

He reached the bottom and
leaned against a trunk to catch his breath. The outlaws, already some distance
ahead, scuttled along the far side of the common way. They drew close to the
gap in the bank where the track branched off to the manor and crept forward
with caution. Peter watched as they craned their necks, wary of any knights
that Eorl Bosa might have left to stop their retreat.

He copied the outlaws’
tactics and darted across the common way onto the other side.

“Oi!”

Peter’s stomach lurched and
he dropped to his knees as if he’d been punched. Up on the bank stood the
knight who’d spotted his backpack. With deliberate malice, he pointed his sword
straight at Peter and, with a terrible cry, leapt over the edge and barrelled
down the incline as if he didn’t care about the steep descent. The knight
bounced off trees, smashed through bushes, leapt over tree roots. With his body
tipped forward, his feet left the ground, but he didn’t take his eyes off
Peter.

Peter scrambled to his feet
and unhooked the backpack. The knight, unable to control his speed, burst onto
the common way and his sword whirled as he tried to keep his balance. The
shield’s bottom edge struck the frozen mud and shattered and this unexpected
impact twisted the knight sideways so that the sword glanced upwards off the
shield’s smooth surface.

Peter jumped out of the way
to avoid the impact and swung the backpack with all his strength into the
knight’s face.

Out of control and running
too fast to retaliate, the knight let out a guttural yell, lost his balance and
crashed face first onto the mud. The ground trembled with his fall.

Peter shuffled backwards,
ready to run, but he didn’t dare, scared that the knight might recover and give
chase. The knight’s legs, encased in chainmail right down to his feet, twitched,
but he made no attempt to stand. Peter backed away, afraid to be too close in
case of a trick. The legs twitched once more and then lay still. The breath
that steamed from the knight’s mouth no longer showed.

Had he knocked him out with
the backpack? The heavy thermos might have made a direct hit.