In The Grip Of Old Winter (31 page)

Too late to run, or hide.
Wulfwyn drew his knife and Godwine his sword. Peter grasped his staff with both
hands.

Eorl Bosa raised his hand and
the knights slackened their pace, though he still came forward. Fifty paces
from where they stood, he reined his horse to a stop and dismounted. “I do not
come to fight, but to speak.” He led his horse as he walked. “I am saved by my
men’s loyalty, for they came upon me as I stumbled from the trees when the jaws
of death closed at my heels.”

Wulfwyn’s voice grated hard
as stones when they are ground one against the other. “Where is Leonor?”

Bosa halted and rubbed his
forehead. “Alas, I faltered, weak with tiredness, for I did not have the
strength to run when Leonor did not wake. Our enemy’s pursuit proved swift and
fearful of capture... I... I...”

Peter shouted. “You left her
in the forest?”

“I meant to return with aid,”
said Bosa. “If one at least ran free to muster arms and men, then all will know
that chance may give them hope.”

“I don’t believe you,” said
Peter. “You saw the spae-wife try to burn us to death and you didn’t save us,
but took the chance to kidnap Leonor - again.”

Wulfwyn stepped forward, his
knife tip level with Bosa’s chest. “The seal-amulet you took also. To give to
the spae-wife, for you are in league with all that is corrupt.” He jabbed the
knife closer.

A knight shouted and spurred
his horse forward, but Bosa lifted his arm and waved him back.

“I did not move of my own
will,” said Bosa. “A charm lay upon me that forced my spirit.” He reached to
his chest and the opening in the robe around his neck. “This stone gave my
thoughts and limbs a will other than my own.” The green stone dangled from its
leather strip, but covered now by a small patch of cloth tied with twine.
“There is some unknown strength within that gives mastery to another’s demands.
I did not know the words I spoke or how I came from one place to another, for a
cloud filled my head and another’s voice whispered what must be done.” He
rubbed the cloth between his finger and thumb. “Now that it is covered, my will
is my own again.”

Peter frowned. “Why don’t you
just take it off and throw it away?”

Bosa stretched the opening at
his neck wider. “It is seared into my flesh.” Where it touched, the leather
strip disappeared under the skin, visible as a dark ridge that reached around
Bosa’s neck.

“Eeugh,” said Peter.

Wulfwyn pointed at the
knights with his knife. “You have men and arms. You talk of chance and hope,
yet I do not see Leonor.”

“She is taken,” said Bosa. “I
returned at first light to the place where I left her asleep, but another came
upon her first.”

“If the spae-wife controlled
you through that green stone,” said Peter, “why didn’t she command you to stop
after you took Leonor?”

Bosa tucked the stone away
under his robe. “Her will to burn the old oak fixed upon that trinket which you
once wore and the cloud that filled my head, melted. I took courage and, though
I felt her thin fingers scratch at my thoughts, I ran far enough to escape her
grasp.”

Peter snorted. “What? When we
were hiding in the tree, you said that after the barghest killed Oswald, you
ran away and the spae-wife let you go. Did you have the stone around your neck
then?”

Bosa wiped his forehead. “I
tell you that I did not know the words I spoke or how I came from one place to
another.” He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again. “I fell upon
the ground at the end of the tunnel and when I awoke the old oak burned and
Leonor lay by my side. I had no weapon. I fled and my will to save Leonor gave
my fear intent.”

Peter thought Bosa’s explanation
might be the truth. The spae-wife didn’t see through the green stone now that
it was covered and so the Eorl’s mind might be free of her.

Wulfwyn glanced up the bank.
“Enough.” He faced Bosa. “I do not trust your words. Your purpose and your will
serves none save yourself.” He placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Come.”

Bosa’s eyes glittered. “I am
Eorl. Knights follow where I lead. Will you forsake their strength in arms?”

“The spae-wife threw down
many knights at your manor,” said Wulfwyn. “They have no strength to compare or
to overthrow.”

“A messenger rides even now
to bring forth more men.” Bosa stroked his horse’s neck. “No enemy withstands
the blow of a mighty wave.”

“A mighty wave will fall
spent on any shore,” said Wulfwyn. “The subtle trick, the stealth that takes
the hunted by surprise, these are the ways to be considered.”

Bosa stood straighter. The
arrogance Peter remembered when he rode to Oswald’s to woo Leonor, returned.

“Leonor’s captivity will not
be broken by words,” said Bosa. “I thought our common cause might aid each
other and so waylay distrust, but now I see that common cause follows different
paths.” He walked his horse around. “We both strive to succeed, so each to his
path and to the glory that rewards valour in ways that are as yet shrouded and
unknown.”

Wulfwyn turned his back on
the Eorl. “Pretty words,” and he crossed the common way and climbed the
opposite bank. Peter followed and so did Godwine.

***

Peter puffed as the bank
steepened. “If Bosa rescues Leonor first, he’ll marry her.”

Wulfwyn’s long stride
increased. “This is so.”

On the bush that Peter
grasped to help his climb, a branch snapped and he toppled backwards into
Godwine. Wulfwyn reached back, took Peter’s arm and hauled him upright.

Peter panted to catch his
breath. “But how are you going to defeat the spae-wife without... without the
seal-amulet and just the two of us to help?”

Wulfwyn scrambled to the top
of the bank. “I do not know the means.” He grasped Peter’s and Godwine’s hands
to pull them level. “There is much that will decide Leonor’s fate. For good or
ill, I will strive to take her hand. If the charm that wraps her in sleep can
be broken and at first sight she spies the Eorl and Wulfwyn together, her
choice will be true.”

“You,” said Peter.

Wulfwyn nodded. “If the Eorl
snatches her and then she awakes, force will be his way to secure their union.”
He glanced through the trees towards the manor. “Hope is not yet lost,” and
then he faced Peter. “You spoke of some ‘place?’”

Peter looked down at the
common way. Eorl Bosa remounted and rode back to join his men. The knights
watched them with grim faces.

“Yes.” Peter pushed his way
through the bushes as he led Wulfwyn and Godwine deeper into the trees.
Glimpses of the manor’s roof and the tower appeared between the trunks. “Bosa
must have moved his men out of the manor before the spae-wife arrived.” No one
moved on the tower. “I can’t see anyone.” No smoke rose from the dwellings. “He
must have told that patrol who rescued him to get them out.”

“They hide and wait for Bosa’s
word,” said Wulfwyn.

“Somewhere in the trees?”

Wulfwyn leapt over a large
root. “They watch and wait.”

Peter stopped and pointed.
“There.” Wulfwyn and Godwine drew their weapons.

“The charred branch,” said
Peter. “I’ve found it.” His heart jumped and relief throbbed like a tense
muscle that relaxes. The sight of it gave him so much hope. He didn’t need to
be a burden, now he had the chance to help and even better, now he had the
chance to return home. “I need to go to Bear first,” and he ran through the
trees. “He’ll know what to do, because he fought the spae-wife before.”

Wulfwyn and Godwine ran to
catch up and Wulfwyn frowned as he stared at the blackened branch and then at
Peter. “This is the aid of which you speak?”

Peter nodded. “If you put
your hands on my shoulders, I’ll touch the branch and then we’ll go... we’ll go
somewhere different.”

Godwine shrugged and placed
his hand on Peter’s right shoulder.

Wulfwyn shook his head as if
he had no choice but to agree to such a mad request. “There is so much, even
from our first meeting, that is strange that I no longer wonder. If there is hope,
then let it show.” He placed his hand on Peter’s left shoulder.

“It feels a bit weird,” said
Peter. “Like you want to be sick, but it doesn’t last long.” He faced the
branch, gripped hold of it, shut his eyes and said, “Bear.”

Nothing happened.

Peter opened his eyes.
“Bear.” No distant wind blew. The tree and all the trees around stayed the same
shape and size.

He shouted louder. “BEAR.”
The grey sky didn’t flash from night to day and no stars streaked past
overhead.

Fear filled Peter’s chest and
tears welled and blurred his sight. He gripped the branch tighter. “BEAR.” If
the charred branch didn’t work, he’d never be able to return home. Without the
skin-walkers help, he’d die with Wulfwyn and Godwine. He dropped his staff and
took hold of the branch with both hands. “BEAR.” It worked before the carrier
gave him the seal-amulet, so what had changed?

Wulfwyn and Godwine released
their grip and Peter heard the soft sigh as Godwine drew his sword. The
spae-wife?  Had she seen them through the trees and now bore down on them with
the barghest and the carrier, ready to give chase and tear them apart?

Peter slumped, his arms and
legs weak as water, helpless in mind and body now that he faced the inevitable.
He’d never see anyone he knew ever again. He’d be lost forever, dead in a time
long before his own.

Did the spae-wife disable the
branch, use the seal-amulet to destroy it? Perhaps she guessed that Peter might
call the skin-walkers and worked fast to stop that happening.

Wulfwyn gripped Peter’s
shoulder again. Peter vowed to fight as hard as the outlaws. He bent, picked up
his staff and faced the manor. “I can’t make it work...”

The trees, the manor, the
tower, blurred and faded, shifted as if he gazed at them through glasses with
too-thick lenses. Or, did the ground shift so that everything that grew or
stood, tilt and sway?

Peter staggered, dizzy,
unsettled and sick. Wulfwyn gripped his shoulder tighter and shifted from side
to side to keep his balance. Godwine’s hand rested upon a tree that faded to
nothing and then re-appeared. He almost toppled over and lurched backwards to
stay upright. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head.

Peter gasped. “What’s
happening?”

Wulfwyn said, “The
spae-wife?”

Peter drove his staff into
the ground to give him extra support. The grey sky darkened, fast as a switch
that flicks off a light, into black night. Stars glittered with sudden
brightness and where the manor once stood, there now burned a huge bonfire.

Silhouetted against the
flames stood the skin-walkers, their arms outstretched and their robes ruffled
by the fire’s heat. They gazed upwards and the harmony of their song rose and
fell from one perfect pitch to another and, as if they heard, the stars
twinkled with their clear white light.

Peter started forward to call,
when the sky lightened and heavy grey clouds swept the night away. Snow fell,
sudden and swift and many of the trees faded from sight and disappeared.

The old stone house where
granddad and grandma lived emerged as if from a mist and a golden light glowed
from the kitchen window. Peter cried out and tried to run, but Wulfwyn held him
back.

“That’s the house in my
time.” As Peter watched, granddad appeared from around the side and peered up
at the sky. “Granddad.” He didn’t hear, for he never glanced to where Peter
called. “Granddad.”

“He does not know,” said
Wulfwyn. “Is he the help you seek?”

“No. That was the
skin-walkers. When they stood around the fire, but granddad might...” He took a
breath to call again when the house shimmered, like a mirage in the desert in a
film he’d seen once, and granddad shimmered too until they both vanished. The manor
and the tower appeared at the same time as a faint outline of the skin-walkers
fire. The sky faded from grey to black to grey again.

Peter’s eyes hurt as he tried
to concentrate on one part of the past or the present, but it made him too dizzy
and he squinted so that everything stayed out of focus and that helped to stop
his head from spinning. “I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know what to
do.”

Granddad’s house took the
place of the manor, though the skin-walkers fire still glinted as if it burned through
and over the house, but the flames never scorched the stones.

Wulfwyn gasped and pointed.
“Look, Leonor stands with a candle. She sees me, for she waves the flame to
show that I must come.”

Leonor’s pale face gazed out
from the topmost window underneath the battlements. Her eyes sparkled in the
flame’s cold light.

Peter shouted. “No. That is
Leonor’s ghost. She isn’t real. It’s a different time. You cannot go to her
there.” He didn’t understand why he spoke these words, yet he thought he
guessed their truth. Leonor still lived in Wulfwyn’s time and if they managed
to save her, then her ghost need never appear in granddad’s house. Wulfwyn too,
once reunited with Leonor, need never be a ghost, either. But if they didn’t
save Leonor... well, he didn’t know.