Nick’s first impulse was to dodge back
into the cave. But it was already too late for that. He knew the
Herald had sighted him. And he did not want to reveal even more
this back door to the cave. Nick moved farther into the open to
face the alien.
To his eyes this was the same Herald he had seen riding over the
ridge to the city. The man (if man he really was) matched him in
height, though his body was more slender than Nick’s. His
green breeches and undercoat were dulled by the brilliance of the
stiff tabard with its wealth of color and glittering
embroidery.
The tabard was divided into four quarters, each of which bore a
different intricate device. Over each shoulder was a small
half-cape with the same designs repeated in miniature. His
four-pointed cap, beneath which his hair was so sleeked against his
head as to appear painted on his skull, was stiffened by a band of
gold like a small crown circlet.
His face was expressionless, impassive, and his skin very white
so that the bracketing of moustaches about his mouth might have
been drawn in ink. He did not move at once, but before Nick was
more than three or four strides from the hole he was on his way to
meet him, his walk an effortless glide.
Thus they came face to face with only an arm’s length
between them. And in all that time the Herald kept silent, nor did
his set, smooth expression change. When he did speak it was
startling, as if a painted puppet had been given a voice.
“I am Avalon.”
There was a pause that he did not break. Nick gathered it was
his turn for self-introduction.
“I am Nicholas Shaw.” He stated his name formally,
sensing the occasion demanded that.
The Herald made a slight inclination with his head.
‘To that which is of Avalon, and of Tara, of Broceliande,
of Carnac, may you be welcome, Nicholas Shaw, if it be of your own
will and choice that this be so.”
So, this was it, the stating of the bargain. Nick thought
furiously—he must stall, try to learn all he could without giving a
quick denial. But to play such a game with this stranger would, he
was sure, be very difficult.
“This is not a land to make one welcome.” He sought
for words that might in return bring some of the answers he wanted.
“I have seen things here that are dangers past my own
world’s knowing.” Even as he spoke he felt a faint
surprise at his choice of words. It was as if he tried to speak a
foreign language, yet they were of his own tongue, merely ones he
would not naturally have selected.
“This is a land of strangers. Those who accept the land
will find that it accepts them, and there are, then, not the perils
you have seen.”
“And the manner of this acceptance?”
Avalon slipped his hand beneath the stiff front of his tabard.
He withdrew it, holding a small box, which he snapped open. The box
was round, and nested in it was a single fruit, a golden apple,
gold that is for the most part, but with a beginning blush of red
on one side. From it, or the box that cradled it, came an aroma to
entice the sense of smell, as it also enticed the eyes.
“Of this you eat, for it is of Avalon. Thus Avalon enters
into you and you are a part of it, even as it is a part of you.
Having so taken Avalon, you are a freeman of all it has to
offer.”
“I have been told”—Nick was cautious but hopeful of
perhaps gaining a shred of answer—“that if one does this thing,
becomes of Avalon, one is then apart from one’s past, no
longer the person one was before—”
Still the Herald’s expression did not alter. “One
makes choices, and each choice changes one a little. This is the
way of life, one cannot avoid it. If you fear what Avalon has to
offer, then you make one choice, and by that you must abide. There
are those who will not become a part of the land, thereby the land
rejects them, and they shall have no good of it, nor any
peace.”
“There is peace then in Avalon?” Nick tried to get
disbelief into his tone. “What I have seen here suggests that
is not so. I have watched men entrapped by others, I have seen
wanderers who cannot claim any portion of this world for
home.”
“It was their choice to reject Avalon, therefore Avalon
rejects them. They remain rootless, shelterless. And the day
approaches when they shall find that, without roots, shelter, they
are utterly lost.”
“Those truly of Avalon will turn against them?” Nick
demanded. Was what he had just heard a threat or a warning?
“There is no need. Avalon is no man’s enemy. It is
a place of peace and safety. But if one remains without, then comes
darkness and ill. This has happened before, the evil lapping at the
land. Where it meets Avalon and Tara, Broceliande and Carnac, then
it laps against walls it cannot overflow. But for those without
those walls there is peril beyond reckoning. Alternately that evil
flows and ebbs. This is a time of the beginning of the
flow.”
“Is it this evil that brings such as me into Avalon in the
first place?”
“Such questions are not for my answering, stranger. Accept
of Avalon and you will understand.”
“I cannot decide right now—” Nick fenced.
Again the Herald inclined his head. “That is understood,
for your race are not of controlled thought. Clear decisions come
hard for you. I shall see you again.”
He closed the box, put it once more under his tabard, and turned
from Nick, gliding away at such a pace Nick could not have matched
unless he broke into a jog. But he was determined to follow, at
least a little way. The Herald was not mounted, surely Nick could
trail him—
With only that idea in mind Nick pushed through bushes, trying
to keep in sight the blaze of that tabard. Meanwhile he thought
about what Avalon had said. Apparently he called himself by the
name of the land as if he were its official spokesman, identifying
himself wholly with it. And had he threatened, or merely stated,
that some great danger lay ahead for all those who were not
protected by the People?
The mass migration of the drifters gave part proof. And what
Nick had witnessed of the attacks from the saucers underlined the
safety of the Herald and his city. On the other hand there was the
manifest horror of his offer that the English displayed, though
their reasons still seemed vague to Nick.
It was all—
Nick halted. The blaze of color had also stopped. Nick ducked
into a bush. There was someone rising out of similar cover to
confront the Herald, holding on high a pole topped with a cross of
dull metal.
“Demon!” The figure used the cross-pole as a club,
seeking to bring it down on the Herald’s head. But Avalon was
not there to take the force of that blow. Instead his body was well
to one side. Again that wild figure, wearing a tattered and
mud-bespattered brown robe, with gray hair matted about his head
and a beard of the same on his jaw, tried to do battle. This time
the Herald vanished from sight.
“Stay!”
From behind Nick came a gust of foul odor, with a sharp prick in
his mid-back to reinforce the order. A moment later the same voice
called, in a thick gabble he could not understand, some
summons.
The Herald’s would-be assailant was still moving about
where Avalon had last disappeared, ramming the cross-pole into
bushes, crying out in a high voice words Nick could not translate.
His attitude was one of rage fed by bafflement
At a second hail from behind Nick, he finally stopped beating
the bushes and came toward the American in a lopsided gait that
still let him cover the ground with speed.
His dress, Nick saw, as he came to a stop, leaning on the pole
of his cross, was that of a monk. And the eyes in his grimy face
were the burning ones of a fanatic.
“Up!” Pain in Nick’s back. The American got to
his feet, raging both at the man behind him and at himself for
being so blind as to be so easily captured.
The monk thrust his face close to Nick’s. His breath was
foul and the rank odor of his body and ancient clothing was enough
to sicken the captive. The fierce eyes swept up and down Nick.
“Demon!” He raised the cross and Nick thought it was
about to thud home on his skull. He ducked and was rewarded by a
cuff on the side of his head that sent him sprawling to his knees,
his head ringing, half-dazed.
They gabbled over him, his captor and the monk. Hands caught and
held him, one twisted in his hair so that he could not move his
head. Again the cross loomed over him. And this time it was lowered
so that its tip bit painfully into the skin on his forehead. The
monk held it so for a long moment and then snatched it away,
bending close to Nick to survey the result of that contact.
He grunted as if displeased, then gave some order to the other.
Nick was pulled to his feet, his hands twisted behind him and
secured there by a cord, which cut into his flesh. Then his
hitherto-unseen captor came around to face the monk.
Though in build he was much like Stroud, he was far removed
otherwise from the Warden in appearance. His face was largely
covered with a greasy mat of beard, which climbed so high on his
cheekbones that it was nearly entangled with brows as full and
shaggy. On his head was a metal helmet, dented, rust streaked,
which sprouted a piece to hide his nose. The rest of his clothing
was in keeping, rusty mail over leather so old and filthy that it
was near black. His slightly bowed legs were covered with
tight-fitting, but hole-filled hose, and boots that were close to
complete disintegration.
But he was armed. A sword was belted on, and a dagger nearly as
long as Nick’s forearm balanced that. Over his shoulder arose
the curve of a crossbow. He had drawn the dagger and leered at Nick
as he set it with the point aimed at the American’s
throat.
The monk shook his head with the jerky violence that
characterized all his movements and spat some order. The other
grinned, his mouth a broken-toothed gap in that noisome brush of
beard. Seizing Nick by his shoulder, he gave him a shove after the
monk who hobbled on, his cross-pole upheld as if it were both a
banner and a threat.
That he had fallen into the hands of a drifter band was plain.
Nick, shaken by his own folly in allowing himself to be caught,
could not yet think straight. He doubted more strongly every minute
that these people could in any way be appealed to as fellow
refugees. The soldier, if soldier were his occupation, who kept him
going with bruising slaps and punches, exuded such brutality as
Nick had never before encountered. And the monk’s attitude
was, to his mind, no better.
They came into an open space by a small stream to meet the rest
of this company. There were three more of the soldiers, as like his
original captor as if they were all brothers. But the authority was
not theirs. Rather it seemed divided between the monk and another
who sat with her back against a rock. She was tearing at a piece of
half-cooked meat from a supply speared on sticks and set to roast
at the edge of a fire.
Grease glistened on her chin, dripped to the front of the laced
bodice of her gown where it joined and reinforced the stiffened
evidence of many other such meals. Her skin was gray with ancient
grime, her hair braids lusterless with neglect. But her features
were those which, had she been clean and well-cared for, might have
made her a beauty even in Nick’s world. And her foully used
dress was patterned with what once had been fine embroidery, just
as her girdle and the rings she wore on each finger and thumb were
bejeweled. There was a gold circlet on her head with a setting of a
dull blue gem above her forehead. She was like some princess out of
a fairy-book illustration completely degraded.
At the sight of Nick she threw away the bone she gnawed. Sitting
up straighter, she pointed to him imperiously and uttered some
command he could not understand. Yet there were word sounds in it
that were familiar. When he did not answer, his captor cuffed him
again.
But the monk waved the soldier away, voiced a furious objection.
The vicious amusement that had come into the woman’s face at
her underling’s correction of their prisoner dulled with
disappointment. She shrugged and gestured. One of the other men
hastened to uproot another spit of meat and take it to her.
However the monk planted himself directly before Nick and spoke
slowly, spacing a breath between each word. It was all
incomprehensible and Nick shook his head. Now his captor advanced
again. He addressed the monk with grudging respect, then he turned
to Nick.
“Who—you?” The accent was very guttural but the
question made sense.
“Nicholas Shaw—and you are?”
The soldier grinned evilly. “Not matter. You demon
spawn.” He spat. “We keep—demons see—They give us
sword—we give you sword!”
Now the monk broke into speech again, plainly demanding some
response from the soldier. The woman, licking her fingers,
interrupted. At her words the four soldiers laughed heartily. But
the monk whirled to face her, waving his pole. She continued to
smile but remained silent under his spate of speech. However, the
soldiers stopped laughing.
Nick was jerked over to a convenient tree, his back planted
against its trunk and a length of twisted hide rope used to anchor
him securely. The monk surveyed the operation with approval and
satisfaction. Then Nick was left to his own devices and his
thoughts, while the rest tramped back to squat by the fire and
eat.
The smell of the meat made him hungry. The stew Linda had given
him now seemed very far in the past. But he was even more thirsty
than hungry, and to see the ripple of water beyond was an
aggravation that increased as the afternoon passed.
It would seem that this party was in no haste to travel on. One
of the soldiers (or, Nick decided, they might better be termed
“men-at-arms” since their shabby trappings were
certainly more akin to that time labeled “Middle Ages”
than his own) went behind a screen of bushes to return leading a
heavy-footed, uncurried horse, its ribs too plain beneath its hide,
and a mule with one lop ear. These he guided down to the water and
let drink, before herding them back into the bushes again.
The monk stretched out on the ground well away from the fire as
the heat of the afternoon increased. His hands were crossed on his
breast, under them the pole of his strange weapon. The men-at-arms,
drawing away from their betters, did the same, though they took
turns on guard, prowling in and out of the bushes.
Having finished her meal, the woman wiped her hands on a tuft of
grass, the first gesture toward cleanliness Nick had seen her make.
She went to the brook, drank from her cupped hands, wiped them this
time on her skirt. She stood, eyeing the sleeping monk and the
soldiers. Then she gave a quick glance at Nick before returning to
her rock-backed seat.
But she did not settle to rest. Instead she lounged at ease,
playing with one of her long braids, humming. Now and again she
glanced at Nick meaningly, as he was fully aware.
As he had felt the brutality of the men-at-arms, the raw
fanaticism of the monk, so the evil that was in her was like a
scent, rank and horrible. Nick’s reaction to this party he
could not understand. Never before had he had such an aversion to
any person or persons, the sensation that he knew their feelings.
It was like his comprehension that Jeremiah could understand him, a
heightened power of which he had never before been aware. And this
added to his fear.
That he was in a very bad situation there was no denying. They
would slit his throat with ease and needed no urging to it. In fact
he would swear the woman would relish it. He could gather only one
idea—that he was to be kept as a bargaining point with those they
called “demons.” And since the monk had screamed that
at the Herald, it was the People with whom they intended to
bargain, to so threaten by their usage of Nick. The thought was
freezing. For what would the People care if he were murdered here?
He had refused the Herald’s offer—or at least delayed answer
to it—so he was no concern of Avalon’s. The terms had been
made plain to him: Avalon defended its own, the rest could meet the
fate they had chosen.
Now Nick wished he had answered differently. It seemed to him
that the Vicar’s talk of changing, of the wrongness of that
choice, was as nothing compared to being in these hands. Yet—there
was in him a stubbornness of which he was aware—he would not be
forced to a choice he did not freely give.
This whole venture had begun because he had wanted to get away,
to be himself without outside pressures, without interference. Yet
he had met with nothing but that. He had been swung by duty into
guiding Linda. After their meeting with the English party they had
to conform to their type of existence, simply because he was not
informed enough to take risks—
The monk was snoring, but his small snorts were nearly drowned
out by the deeper chorus from the men-at-arms. Their comrade on
guard duty came into view and the woman beckoned to him, gave an
order. He touched his rusty helmet with a forefinger and went off
in the direction of the animals. She watched him go, then arose and
went to the stream.
Cupping her hands she dipped up as much of the water as she
could, and came, swift-footed, with dripping fingers, to Nick.
“Aqua—” she held it out just a little
beyond his reach.
Latin! She had spoken Latin!
Her hands moved closer. His thirst was torment now that the
water was here. But he did not trust her in the least. He did not
believe that she had a sense of compassion. This was a game she
wanted to play.
The moisture dripped on his shirt, he could dip his head and
drink. But something in him said “no,” and he heeded
it.
Her smile pinched into nothingness. She flung what remained into
his face. Then she went back to her rock, to return as swiftly with
a small whip, its stock tarnished but set with rough-cut stones.
Raising it she struck him across the face, the lash as sharp as a
knife stab, leaving a hot line of pain behind.
Now she laughed, for in spite of his control Nick had gasped,
and stood flicking the lash back and forth, watching him to see if
he understood the threat of that. But if she planned other mischief
she was again defeated by the monk.
He had sat up, now he gave voice to what could only be a roar of
rage. One so vehemently expressed that it brought the men-at-arms
awake and their hands to their weapons, pulled their fellow back
through the bushes at a run to join them.
The woman stood her ground, waiting for a lull in the
monk’s shouts. Then she replied with a matching sharpness.
But she left Nick. Apparently the monk’s wishes still ruled.
Nick only wished fervently he knew what those were.
As the shadows of evening drew in he thought of the cave. They
must have missed him by now, but even if they found his exit they
would have no idea of where he had gone. And for their own sakes
they would not venture into the open without a guide. He knew he
could not hope for any chance of rescue.
He had been trying at intervals to loosen the ties about his
wrists. But they were past dealing with. His hands were numb, and
the lack of feeling was spreading up his arms. The support of the
tree trunk against which he had been lashed kept him upright, but
his feet were also numb. And he was not sure he could move with any
speed even if he were now, by some miracle, set free.
With the coming of twilight the men-at-arms were busied. They
had had one fire during the day. Now they were bringing wood,
making a second some distance away. The monk labored with some
lengths of dried branches he had chosen with care. He chipped away
with his belt knife, used twists of grass in a way to suggest that
he had done this many times before, and fashioned some more crosses
of wood.
These in hand, he approached the tree and Nick and proceeded to
set them in the ground, as if by doing so he erected a barrier
about the captive. As he worked he muttered, and Nick thought that
he recognized now and then a Latin word. Having set up the crosses
the monk methodically paced along that line, touching each with the
metal of the one on the pole, chanting aloud as he went. Behind him
the others drew together and their voices were raised now and then
in response to the ceremony he was performing.
They then lit the second fire, which gave a light that grew as
the darkness increased. The horse and the mule were brought out,
once more watered, and then tethered between the fires, while their
guardian hung about their bony necks cords with bits of broken
metal fastened to them. Into the light between the fires moved the
whole company. The men-at-arms drew their daggers, kept them in
their hands as if they settled in to await a siege. But the monk
thrust the pole of his cross into the ground and stood not too far
from Nick.
Their whole attitude was one of expectancy, and Nick found
himself listening, though for what he could not imagine. From time
to tune the monk muttered, those between the fires shifted, or
showed other signs of fatigue, but they lost none of their
vigilance.
Nick became aware slowly of a foulness like the odor that wafted
to him from the members of this camp. Only this was not a foulness
born of the body, but rather of the spirit. That was another
sensation he had never known, yet was able to recognize it for what
it was. Just as the farmhouse wherein they had sheltered had been a
haven of good, so did that which was closing in now advertise its
threatening evil.
And the others must have expected its coming. It was not of
Avalon, Nick was as sure of that as if the fact had been shouted
aloud.
Dank, heavy, a cloud of corruption—Then Nick heard the rasp of
something ponderously heavy moving through the brush—a panting
breath.
Those in the firelight raised their hands—the iron they held
there visible. While the monk freed his cross-pole from the ground
and made ready to use it, as he had tried to club the Herald.
Closer—Nick saw a bush quiver to his left. He turned his head to
face what might issue from there. In the midst of the branches was
a head. He made himself eye it, though fear battled his control and
he shivered.
Gray white, bestial, twisted—it was obscene, the epitome of
every night terror. It leered, showed fangs, was gone. A serpent,
or something with a serpent’s body, writhed out from another
direction. It had a serpent’s body, but the head was that of
a woman. And, as the thing came, it called in a hissing voice words
that those in the firelight must have understood, for with a cry of
horror and hate one of the men-at-arms plunged forward, aiming at
the creature with his knife. It sliced into the body behind the
smiling head.
But there was no wound and the man cowered back, with a crowing
sound, his knife forgotten, his hands before his eyes, huddling in
upon himself, while the serpent woman coiled and reared—until the
monk lashed out with his pole and she vanished utterly.
That was only the beginning of the siege.
Nick’s first impulse was to dodge back
into the cave. But it was already too late for that. He knew the
Herald had sighted him. And he did not want to reveal even more
this back door to the cave. Nick moved farther into the open to
face the alien.
To his eyes this was the same Herald he had seen riding over the
ridge to the city. The man (if man he really was) matched him in
height, though his body was more slender than Nick’s. His
green breeches and undercoat were dulled by the brilliance of the
stiff tabard with its wealth of color and glittering
embroidery.
The tabard was divided into four quarters, each of which bore a
different intricate device. Over each shoulder was a small
half-cape with the same designs repeated in miniature. His
four-pointed cap, beneath which his hair was so sleeked against his
head as to appear painted on his skull, was stiffened by a band of
gold like a small crown circlet.
His face was expressionless, impassive, and his skin very white
so that the bracketing of moustaches about his mouth might have
been drawn in ink. He did not move at once, but before Nick was
more than three or four strides from the hole he was on his way to
meet him, his walk an effortless glide.
Thus they came face to face with only an arm’s length
between them. And in all that time the Herald kept silent, nor did
his set, smooth expression change. When he did speak it was
startling, as if a painted puppet had been given a voice.
“I am Avalon.”
There was a pause that he did not break. Nick gathered it was
his turn for self-introduction.
“I am Nicholas Shaw.” He stated his name formally,
sensing the occasion demanded that.
The Herald made a slight inclination with his head.
‘To that which is of Avalon, and of Tara, of Broceliande,
of Carnac, may you be welcome, Nicholas Shaw, if it be of your own
will and choice that this be so.”
So, this was it, the stating of the bargain. Nick thought
furiously—he must stall, try to learn all he could without giving a
quick denial. But to play such a game with this stranger would, he
was sure, be very difficult.
“This is not a land to make one welcome.” He sought
for words that might in return bring some of the answers he wanted.
“I have seen things here that are dangers past my own
world’s knowing.” Even as he spoke he felt a faint
surprise at his choice of words. It was as if he tried to speak a
foreign language, yet they were of his own tongue, merely ones he
would not naturally have selected.
“This is a land of strangers. Those who accept the land
will find that it accepts them, and there are, then, not the perils
you have seen.”
“And the manner of this acceptance?”
Avalon slipped his hand beneath the stiff front of his tabard.
He withdrew it, holding a small box, which he snapped open. The box
was round, and nested in it was a single fruit, a golden apple,
gold that is for the most part, but with a beginning blush of red
on one side. From it, or the box that cradled it, came an aroma to
entice the sense of smell, as it also enticed the eyes.
“Of this you eat, for it is of Avalon. Thus Avalon enters
into you and you are a part of it, even as it is a part of you.
Having so taken Avalon, you are a freeman of all it has to
offer.”
“I have been told”—Nick was cautious but hopeful of
perhaps gaining a shred of answer—“that if one does this thing,
becomes of Avalon, one is then apart from one’s past, no
longer the person one was before—”
Still the Herald’s expression did not alter. “One
makes choices, and each choice changes one a little. This is the
way of life, one cannot avoid it. If you fear what Avalon has to
offer, then you make one choice, and by that you must abide. There
are those who will not become a part of the land, thereby the land
rejects them, and they shall have no good of it, nor any
peace.”
“There is peace then in Avalon?” Nick tried to get
disbelief into his tone. “What I have seen here suggests that
is not so. I have watched men entrapped by others, I have seen
wanderers who cannot claim any portion of this world for
home.”
“It was their choice to reject Avalon, therefore Avalon
rejects them. They remain rootless, shelterless. And the day
approaches when they shall find that, without roots, shelter, they
are utterly lost.”
“Those truly of Avalon will turn against them?” Nick
demanded. Was what he had just heard a threat or a warning?
“There is no need. Avalon is no man’s enemy. It is
a place of peace and safety. But if one remains without, then comes
darkness and ill. This has happened before, the evil lapping at the
land. Where it meets Avalon and Tara, Broceliande and Carnac, then
it laps against walls it cannot overflow. But for those without
those walls there is peril beyond reckoning. Alternately that evil
flows and ebbs. This is a time of the beginning of the
flow.”
“Is it this evil that brings such as me into Avalon in the
first place?”
“Such questions are not for my answering, stranger. Accept
of Avalon and you will understand.”
“I cannot decide right now—” Nick fenced.
Again the Herald inclined his head. “That is understood,
for your race are not of controlled thought. Clear decisions come
hard for you. I shall see you again.”
He closed the box, put it once more under his tabard, and turned
from Nick, gliding away at such a pace Nick could not have matched
unless he broke into a jog. But he was determined to follow, at
least a little way. The Herald was not mounted, surely Nick could
trail him—
With only that idea in mind Nick pushed through bushes, trying
to keep in sight the blaze of that tabard. Meanwhile he thought
about what Avalon had said. Apparently he called himself by the
name of the land as if he were its official spokesman, identifying
himself wholly with it. And had he threatened, or merely stated,
that some great danger lay ahead for all those who were not
protected by the People?
The mass migration of the drifters gave part proof. And what
Nick had witnessed of the attacks from the saucers underlined the
safety of the Herald and his city. On the other hand there was the
manifest horror of his offer that the English displayed, though
their reasons still seemed vague to Nick.
It was all—
Nick halted. The blaze of color had also stopped. Nick ducked
into a bush. There was someone rising out of similar cover to
confront the Herald, holding on high a pole topped with a cross of
dull metal.
“Demon!” The figure used the cross-pole as a club,
seeking to bring it down on the Herald’s head. But Avalon was
not there to take the force of that blow. Instead his body was well
to one side. Again that wild figure, wearing a tattered and
mud-bespattered brown robe, with gray hair matted about his head
and a beard of the same on his jaw, tried to do battle. This time
the Herald vanished from sight.
“Stay!”
From behind Nick came a gust of foul odor, with a sharp prick in
his mid-back to reinforce the order. A moment later the same voice
called, in a thick gabble he could not understand, some
summons.
The Herald’s would-be assailant was still moving about
where Avalon had last disappeared, ramming the cross-pole into
bushes, crying out in a high voice words Nick could not translate.
His attitude was one of rage fed by bafflement
At a second hail from behind Nick, he finally stopped beating
the bushes and came toward the American in a lopsided gait that
still let him cover the ground with speed.
His dress, Nick saw, as he came to a stop, leaning on the pole
of his cross, was that of a monk. And the eyes in his grimy face
were the burning ones of a fanatic.
“Up!” Pain in Nick’s back. The American got to
his feet, raging both at the man behind him and at himself for
being so blind as to be so easily captured.
The monk thrust his face close to Nick’s. His breath was
foul and the rank odor of his body and ancient clothing was enough
to sicken the captive. The fierce eyes swept up and down Nick.
“Demon!” He raised the cross and Nick thought it was
about to thud home on his skull. He ducked and was rewarded by a
cuff on the side of his head that sent him sprawling to his knees,
his head ringing, half-dazed.
They gabbled over him, his captor and the monk. Hands caught and
held him, one twisted in his hair so that he could not move his
head. Again the cross loomed over him. And this time it was lowered
so that its tip bit painfully into the skin on his forehead. The
monk held it so for a long moment and then snatched it away,
bending close to Nick to survey the result of that contact.
He grunted as if displeased, then gave some order to the other.
Nick was pulled to his feet, his hands twisted behind him and
secured there by a cord, which cut into his flesh. Then his
hitherto-unseen captor came around to face the monk.
Though in build he was much like Stroud, he was far removed
otherwise from the Warden in appearance. His face was largely
covered with a greasy mat of beard, which climbed so high on his
cheekbones that it was nearly entangled with brows as full and
shaggy. On his head was a metal helmet, dented, rust streaked,
which sprouted a piece to hide his nose. The rest of his clothing
was in keeping, rusty mail over leather so old and filthy that it
was near black. His slightly bowed legs were covered with
tight-fitting, but hole-filled hose, and boots that were close to
complete disintegration.
But he was armed. A sword was belted on, and a dagger nearly as
long as Nick’s forearm balanced that. Over his shoulder arose
the curve of a crossbow. He had drawn the dagger and leered at Nick
as he set it with the point aimed at the American’s
throat.
The monk shook his head with the jerky violence that
characterized all his movements and spat some order. The other
grinned, his mouth a broken-toothed gap in that noisome brush of
beard. Seizing Nick by his shoulder, he gave him a shove after the
monk who hobbled on, his cross-pole upheld as if it were both a
banner and a threat.
That he had fallen into the hands of a drifter band was plain.
Nick, shaken by his own folly in allowing himself to be caught,
could not yet think straight. He doubted more strongly every minute
that these people could in any way be appealed to as fellow
refugees. The soldier, if soldier were his occupation, who kept him
going with bruising slaps and punches, exuded such brutality as
Nick had never before encountered. And the monk’s attitude
was, to his mind, no better.
They came into an open space by a small stream to meet the rest
of this company. There were three more of the soldiers, as like his
original captor as if they were all brothers. But the authority was
not theirs. Rather it seemed divided between the monk and another
who sat with her back against a rock. She was tearing at a piece of
half-cooked meat from a supply speared on sticks and set to roast
at the edge of a fire.
Grease glistened on her chin, dripped to the front of the laced
bodice of her gown where it joined and reinforced the stiffened
evidence of many other such meals. Her skin was gray with ancient
grime, her hair braids lusterless with neglect. But her features
were those which, had she been clean and well-cared for, might have
made her a beauty even in Nick’s world. And her foully used
dress was patterned with what once had been fine embroidery, just
as her girdle and the rings she wore on each finger and thumb were
bejeweled. There was a gold circlet on her head with a setting of a
dull blue gem above her forehead. She was like some princess out of
a fairy-book illustration completely degraded.
At the sight of Nick she threw away the bone she gnawed. Sitting
up straighter, she pointed to him imperiously and uttered some
command he could not understand. Yet there were word sounds in it
that were familiar. When he did not answer, his captor cuffed him
again.
But the monk waved the soldier away, voiced a furious objection.
The vicious amusement that had come into the woman’s face at
her underling’s correction of their prisoner dulled with
disappointment. She shrugged and gestured. One of the other men
hastened to uproot another spit of meat and take it to her.
However the monk planted himself directly before Nick and spoke
slowly, spacing a breath between each word. It was all
incomprehensible and Nick shook his head. Now his captor advanced
again. He addressed the monk with grudging respect, then he turned
to Nick.
“Who—you?” The accent was very guttural but the
question made sense.
“Nicholas Shaw—and you are?”
The soldier grinned evilly. “Not matter. You demon
spawn.” He spat. “We keep—demons see—They give us
sword—we give you sword!”
Now the monk broke into speech again, plainly demanding some
response from the soldier. The woman, licking her fingers,
interrupted. At her words the four soldiers laughed heartily. But
the monk whirled to face her, waving his pole. She continued to
smile but remained silent under his spate of speech. However, the
soldiers stopped laughing.
Nick was jerked over to a convenient tree, his back planted
against its trunk and a length of twisted hide rope used to anchor
him securely. The monk surveyed the operation with approval and
satisfaction. Then Nick was left to his own devices and his
thoughts, while the rest tramped back to squat by the fire and
eat.
The smell of the meat made him hungry. The stew Linda had given
him now seemed very far in the past. But he was even more thirsty
than hungry, and to see the ripple of water beyond was an
aggravation that increased as the afternoon passed.
It would seem that this party was in no haste to travel on. One
of the soldiers (or, Nick decided, they might better be termed
“men-at-arms” since their shabby trappings were
certainly more akin to that time labeled “Middle Ages”
than his own) went behind a screen of bushes to return leading a
heavy-footed, uncurried horse, its ribs too plain beneath its hide,
and a mule with one lop ear. These he guided down to the water and
let drink, before herding them back into the bushes again.
The monk stretched out on the ground well away from the fire as
the heat of the afternoon increased. His hands were crossed on his
breast, under them the pole of his strange weapon. The men-at-arms,
drawing away from their betters, did the same, though they took
turns on guard, prowling in and out of the bushes.
Having finished her meal, the woman wiped her hands on a tuft of
grass, the first gesture toward cleanliness Nick had seen her make.
She went to the brook, drank from her cupped hands, wiped them this
time on her skirt. She stood, eyeing the sleeping monk and the
soldiers. Then she gave a quick glance at Nick before returning to
her rock-backed seat.
But she did not settle to rest. Instead she lounged at ease,
playing with one of her long braids, humming. Now and again she
glanced at Nick meaningly, as he was fully aware.
As he had felt the brutality of the men-at-arms, the raw
fanaticism of the monk, so the evil that was in her was like a
scent, rank and horrible. Nick’s reaction to this party he
could not understand. Never before had he had such an aversion to
any person or persons, the sensation that he knew their feelings.
It was like his comprehension that Jeremiah could understand him, a
heightened power of which he had never before been aware. And this
added to his fear.
That he was in a very bad situation there was no denying. They
would slit his throat with ease and needed no urging to it. In fact
he would swear the woman would relish it. He could gather only one
idea—that he was to be kept as a bargaining point with those they
called “demons.” And since the monk had screamed that
at the Herald, it was the People with whom they intended to
bargain, to so threaten by their usage of Nick. The thought was
freezing. For what would the People care if he were murdered here?
He had refused the Herald’s offer—or at least delayed answer
to it—so he was no concern of Avalon’s. The terms had been
made plain to him: Avalon defended its own, the rest could meet the
fate they had chosen.
Now Nick wished he had answered differently. It seemed to him
that the Vicar’s talk of changing, of the wrongness of that
choice, was as nothing compared to being in these hands. Yet—there
was in him a stubbornness of which he was aware—he would not be
forced to a choice he did not freely give.
This whole venture had begun because he had wanted to get away,
to be himself without outside pressures, without interference. Yet
he had met with nothing but that. He had been swung by duty into
guiding Linda. After their meeting with the English party they had
to conform to their type of existence, simply because he was not
informed enough to take risks—
The monk was snoring, but his small snorts were nearly drowned
out by the deeper chorus from the men-at-arms. Their comrade on
guard duty came into view and the woman beckoned to him, gave an
order. He touched his rusty helmet with a forefinger and went off
in the direction of the animals. She watched him go, then arose and
went to the stream.
Cupping her hands she dipped up as much of the water as she
could, and came, swift-footed, with dripping fingers, to Nick.
“Aqua—” she held it out just a little
beyond his reach.
Latin! She had spoken Latin!
Her hands moved closer. His thirst was torment now that the
water was here. But he did not trust her in the least. He did not
believe that she had a sense of compassion. This was a game she
wanted to play.
The moisture dripped on his shirt, he could dip his head and
drink. But something in him said “no,” and he heeded
it.
Her smile pinched into nothingness. She flung what remained into
his face. Then she went back to her rock, to return as swiftly with
a small whip, its stock tarnished but set with rough-cut stones.
Raising it she struck him across the face, the lash as sharp as a
knife stab, leaving a hot line of pain behind.
Now she laughed, for in spite of his control Nick had gasped,
and stood flicking the lash back and forth, watching him to see if
he understood the threat of that. But if she planned other mischief
she was again defeated by the monk.
He had sat up, now he gave voice to what could only be a roar of
rage. One so vehemently expressed that it brought the men-at-arms
awake and their hands to their weapons, pulled their fellow back
through the bushes at a run to join them.
The woman stood her ground, waiting for a lull in the
monk’s shouts. Then she replied with a matching sharpness.
But she left Nick. Apparently the monk’s wishes still ruled.
Nick only wished fervently he knew what those were.
As the shadows of evening drew in he thought of the cave. They
must have missed him by now, but even if they found his exit they
would have no idea of where he had gone. And for their own sakes
they would not venture into the open without a guide. He knew he
could not hope for any chance of rescue.
He had been trying at intervals to loosen the ties about his
wrists. But they were past dealing with. His hands were numb, and
the lack of feeling was spreading up his arms. The support of the
tree trunk against which he had been lashed kept him upright, but
his feet were also numb. And he was not sure he could move with any
speed even if he were now, by some miracle, set free.
With the coming of twilight the men-at-arms were busied. They
had had one fire during the day. Now they were bringing wood,
making a second some distance away. The monk labored with some
lengths of dried branches he had chosen with care. He chipped away
with his belt knife, used twists of grass in a way to suggest that
he had done this many times before, and fashioned some more crosses
of wood.
These in hand, he approached the tree and Nick and proceeded to
set them in the ground, as if by doing so he erected a barrier
about the captive. As he worked he muttered, and Nick thought that
he recognized now and then a Latin word. Having set up the crosses
the monk methodically paced along that line, touching each with the
metal of the one on the pole, chanting aloud as he went. Behind him
the others drew together and their voices were raised now and then
in response to the ceremony he was performing.
They then lit the second fire, which gave a light that grew as
the darkness increased. The horse and the mule were brought out,
once more watered, and then tethered between the fires, while their
guardian hung about their bony necks cords with bits of broken
metal fastened to them. Into the light between the fires moved the
whole company. The men-at-arms drew their daggers, kept them in
their hands as if they settled in to await a siege. But the monk
thrust the pole of his cross into the ground and stood not too far
from Nick.
Their whole attitude was one of expectancy, and Nick found
himself listening, though for what he could not imagine. From time
to tune the monk muttered, those between the fires shifted, or
showed other signs of fatigue, but they lost none of their
vigilance.
Nick became aware slowly of a foulness like the odor that wafted
to him from the members of this camp. Only this was not a foulness
born of the body, but rather of the spirit. That was another
sensation he had never known, yet was able to recognize it for what
it was. Just as the farmhouse wherein they had sheltered had been a
haven of good, so did that which was closing in now advertise its
threatening evil.
And the others must have expected its coming. It was not of
Avalon, Nick was as sure of that as if the fact had been shouted
aloud.
Dank, heavy, a cloud of corruption—Then Nick heard the rasp of
something ponderously heavy moving through the brush—a panting
breath.
Those in the firelight raised their hands—the iron they held
there visible. While the monk freed his cross-pole from the ground
and made ready to use it, as he had tried to club the Herald.
Closer—Nick saw a bush quiver to his left. He turned his head to
face what might issue from there. In the midst of the branches was
a head. He made himself eye it, though fear battled his control and
he shivered.
Gray white, bestial, twisted—it was obscene, the epitome of
every night terror. It leered, showed fangs, was gone. A serpent,
or something with a serpent’s body, writhed out from another
direction. It had a serpent’s body, but the head was that of
a woman. And, as the thing came, it called in a hissing voice words
that those in the firelight must have understood, for with a cry of
horror and hate one of the men-at-arms plunged forward, aiming at
the creature with his knife. It sliced into the body behind the
smiling head.
But there was no wound and the man cowered back, with a crowing
sound, his knife forgotten, his hands before his eyes, huddling in
upon himself, while the serpent woman coiled and reared—until the
monk lashed out with his pole and she vanished utterly.
That was only the beginning of the siege.