The Silver Falcon (24 page)

Hands trembling, he took his hunting knife and sliced at the loose cloth she wore wrapped twice around her waist in place of a belt. He cut it into two halves and used them to tie her to a tree.

Enid was still singing; it was as if she had to. She clung to the familiar words of the lullaby and fervently hoped David would remain calm so that he would not be beaten again.

Bevis hurried to help his scrawny companion. “Why don’t you stop her mouth? I can’t stand this howling,” he cried, blocking his ears. “She’s driving me mad.”

Enid twitched under the blows of the men, but she did not stop singing. In some mysterious way it gave her strength; it was her only weapon in this unequal fight.

The child began to kick powerfully. It needs comfort, thought Enid, just like me and David. So I mustn’t stop singing.

“We’ve had our fun. Now let her go,” the blond one ordered, visibly uneasy. He did not seem comfortable with what the other two were doing to her.

The lean one glared at him, as if sensing an opportunity to become the new leader of their little pack. “Perhaps you’re too softhearted?” he asked challengingly, stroking the scar on his brow with his middle finger. “She’s defying us and mocking us with her singing.”

Enid looked pleadingly at the blond one. Despite the brutality with which he had first punched and then kicked David, his face
looked pink and innocent. As if freshly scrubbed. Enid thought she could see doubt in his blue eyes, perhaps even sympathy, and quiet hope rose in her. He was the only one who could help her. She stopped singing for a moment. One word, just one word from him would be enough to make the others stop.

But the blond one hesitated, avoiding her eyes, and turned away. “Oh, do what you will with her!” he growled over his shoulder. He kicked David in the guts again, then leaned down and started polishing his boots with the boy’s shirt.

“God in heaven, please be merciful,” whispered Enid. The cloth was biting painfully into her flesh.

“Someone like you can’t rely on succor from God.” The lean one laughed cruelly, took his knife, and slit her shift open all the way up. He approached her face and licked it.

Enid threw her head aside in disgust. Her terror made her start singing again.

“I’ll stop her mouth once and for all,” she heard. Then a terrible pain stabbed through her. It took her breath away, shocked her, horrified her; it caused her song to fall silent. The child, she thought, panic-stricken. Then everything went black.

William awoke, startled, and looked about. He had meant to go back to Enid, but he must have fallen asleep. Dawn was well advanced. Before long it would be broad daylight. It looked like a clear summer day. He stood up. Going back to Enid was the right decision.

He kicked some earth over the ashes of his fire so that the wind would not catch some of the embers and ignite a forest fire. He would learn to love the forest as much as Enid did, and he would try to use the goshawks to drive out once and for all his longing for falcons. After all, he would be responsible for a family soon. He
swore he would never utter the slightest word of reproach to Enid. It was his decision, and he would never regret it.

Thus decided, he set off. All of a sudden he was impatient to see her. He ran across the big meadow and stopped abruptly when he noticed the red flowers that covered it. Poppies! A smile flickered on his face as he bent and picked a large bunch of the fragile flowers. Enid loved their fleeting beauty. When the petals dropped, after less than a day, she would use them to brew a marvelously delicate tea, sweetening it with wild honey. William felt infinitely glad that he had decided in favor of Enid and their child. When he came back with the poppies, Enid would know immediately that he intended to stay and would forgive him.

Once he had almost filled his whole fist with the hairy stems, he looked up at the sky. The mackerel sky had turned into a dense gray mass that blocked out the sun. But the change in the weather could not dampen his euphoria. He ran off, leaping over bushes and ferns, tree roots, and stands of flowers, until he reached the tiny clearing in which their hut stood. It seemed marvelously quiet and peaceful.

“Enid,” he called out when he was still some distance away.

But neither she nor David came to meet him. Surprised, William ran up to the hut. Not a sound was to be heard. The door stood wide-open. Blackness yawned at him from the interior. He noticed tracks in the earth, kneeled down, and examined them closely. There was no doubt: hoofprints from three horses.

A sense of unease flowed into his bowels. Something was wrong. He sprang up and ran around the hut.

The sight of Enid’s lifeless body hit him like a blow. Dumbstruck, he stood staring at the gruesome sight. His hand went limp, and the poppies fell to the ground.

“Enid,” he screamed like a madman, running over to her. “No, please no! Oh God!”

Enid lay crumpled at the base of the tree, naked and smeared with blood. Her belly had been slit open, and her eyes were vacant. William staggered over to a nearby bush and vomited. He gasped, thinking he was going to suffocate, and vomited again.

A loud sob escaped him as he freed his beloved from her bonds and clasped her mutilated body in his arms. He brushed her hair out of her face and kissed her forehead as he wept.

“Why did I ever go?” he lamented, choking, pressing her to him, and rocking her in his arms. After a brief time, he laid her out on the grass, straightened her disheveled golden hair, and covered her nakedness with the slit-open shift. The wind plucked some petals from the poppy stems and blew them across the clearing. A few landed on Enid’s chest and others on her hair.

He did not find the infant child until later; it had been carelessly tossed aside in the grass. William groaned. The tiny little boy’s thin limbs seemed strangely dislocated.

“My son.” He sank to his knees, despairing, but could not bring himself to touch the child. He covered his face with his hands and wept. Why, Lord? he protested, beside himself with grief. But no sound emerged from his throat. Why?

A little while later, he heard a quiet groan. William looked around. “David?” He found the boy under a bush. His face was in a bad way. His nose looked broken; his chin and right cheekbone were black and blue. But he was alive.

Why didn’t you let
her
live instead of
him
? thought William bitterly, looking reproachfully up at the sky as if he could glimpse God’s face and receive an answer.

David whimpered with pain.

“It’s all right,” William said as he sat beside the injured boy and stroked his tousled hair. “I’m here with you.”

After a while he stood up and helped David into the hut and onto his bed. “Get some rest,” he said gently, stroking his head, just
as Enid had always done. Tears were still running down the poor boy’s face long after he fell asleep.

William dragged himself outdoors. His chest felt excessively tight, as if an icy fist were crushing his heart. How would he find the courage and strength to bury Enid and their child?

William sat motionless for a long time, staring into the void. He reproached himself for not having come home to Enid and David sooner. Since he hadn’t been able to defend them, he certainly owed them a decent burial.

He stood up like a sleepwalker and, with leaden arms, dug a grave big enough for both Enid and the child. He had never had to carry out a more difficult task. Although he poured all his anger into the work, William felt his own death come closer with every inch that the grave grew deeper.

When the hole was big enough, he was so exhausted he could hardly stand upright. He staggered over to Enid, poured water from his pouch onto his shirt, and used it to wash her face, then lovingly combed her hair with his fingers. Using her linen shift, which was drenched in her blood, he bound up her belly, covering the wound as best he could. When he went to fetch her blanket from the hut, in order to wrap her in it, a small enamel plaque fell to the ground. William picked it up and put it on the table without looking at it.

With the last of his remaining strength, he picked up Enid, carried her to the grave, and laid her in the dark earth.

He knelt beside her for a long time, looking at her with his face soaked with tears. At length he fetched the child and, with trembling hands, placed it in Enid’s arms. Then he collapsed beside the two of them. They looked so peaceful, as if they were only sleeping. He hadn’t been there when they needed him most. How could he go on living with this guilt? And what was the point?

William joined them in the grave, took Enid in his arms, and closed his eyes. The damp earth felt cold. Cold as death, he thought.
And eternity. Why not just remain there until he died? He opened his eyes, stared up into the leaden gray of the sky, and remembered his childhood dreams about his father, the noble knight, arriving on his tall horse to fetch him, and about the mews, and the fame of his falcons. These dreams were far away now, trivial and unreal as if they belonged in a different life. William closed his eyes.

“Wii,” came piteously from the hut.

William started. How long had he been lying there?

“Wii-wii.” This time it was more shrill. David clearly feared being left alone. He was not capable of caring for himself. Now that Enid was no longer with them, William would have to take care of him. With a heavy heart, he pulled himself together, climbed out of the grave, and went into the hut.

David rubbed his stomach and looked at him imploringly. “Wii.”

William nodded and gave him food and drink, but he did not eat a bite himself.

“En?” asked David with an anxious look.

“She’s dead,” said William flatly.

“En,” cried David, bursting into tears, having grasped the awful truth. His eyes were wide with fear. Perhaps the boy, tongue-tied as he was, was less simpleminded than he seemed. He tried to get up, but he could not do it on his own. So William helped him and they went outside together. For half an eternity they stood beside each other by her grave and wept.

William had to close the grave before night fell so the wild animals would not feed on the bodies. He climbed down to Enid and kissed her on the forehead one last time. She felt cold and strange, as cold and strange as his little son’s cheek when William stroked it with his trembling fingers.

David stood at the side of the grave, remaining on his feet only by dint of some effort. When William heaved himself out and
started to shovel the earth back onto the mutilated bodies, the boy clapped his hands over his eyes and sobbed out loud.

The infant child disappeared first under the dark clods of earth; then Enid’s face and body were covered, too. Burying her was an act of love, but at the same time it was so unbearable that it drove William to even deeper despair.

“Don’t worry, my darling. I’ll take care of David,” he promised, as if by doing so he could comfort Enid. Then, using the remains of her waistcloth, he tied two sticks together to make a cross and, with a quiet prayer, placed it in the earth by her final resting place.

W
illiam stumbled along the dusty road in a daze. He had buried Enid and the child and had taken care of David; he had done what had to be done, and in that way he had tried to drive away the searing pain that ate away at him from inside. Looking after David was something he owed Enid. And yet, for him, the forest and the hut were too connected with her for him to be able to stay there without her. So much so that he kept thinking she would appear from behind a bush or open the door for him. He had hunted for food for David, made him meals and herbal teas, and tended his wounds just as Enid would have done. But in the past few days he had taken hardly any nourishment for himself and had slept little. He had not even managed to lie on Enid’s pallet. Instead, he had sat at the table and stared into the darkness of the night.