Shadow of the Wolf (8 page)

R
obin woke suddenly in the cold and the dark, his heart racing. A hand was shaking his shoulder. He looked up into a scowling face, a bare outline in the gloom.

‘Marian?’

‘Ha, you wish,’ Bones said, scratching himself between the legs. ‘Who’s this Marian? The girl of your dreams? Keep her there then – don’t inflict her on the rest of us. You shouting on one side, Rowly snoring on the other, I’ve a mind to …’

Bones was crawling back under his blankets, his muffled complaints fading to silence.

Robin sat up on his hard wooden cot. He reached underneath for his clothes and his boots. He got up and groped his way across the Spartan chamber, picking his way between the other sleeping squires and reaching the doorway. He walked up the steps and emerged into the grey light of the courtyard.

It was not yet dawn, but already the citadel was waking: hearth-boys yawning as they crossed the courtyard with armfuls of firewood; maids emptying chamber pots. The sentries in their watchtowers began the first of the day-calls – ‘Prime hour. All clear’ – the chant beginning over the main gates and working clockwise round the battlements.

Robin filled a bucket from the well, stripped off his nightclothes, washed himself, wincing at the fresh bruises covering his muscles. The water was very cold and was helping to dissolve the memory of the nightmare. In his sleep he and Marian had been running from the Wargwolf, its lower jaw hanging slack, trees bending from its path the way a cat moves through grass.

He ducked his head fully in the bucket. By the time he’d rubbed the water from his eyes Bones was there, yawning and scratching at his groin and filling his own bucket from the well.

‘Rowly’s getting worse with his snoring,’ Bones said. ‘He’s an animal, trapped in a man’s body. I’d get more rest sleeping in the swineshed.’ He splashed water on his face, rubbed at his eyes. ‘Nightmares again?’ he said. ‘Want to talk about it? No? Good, because I don’t want to hear it. Not at a time like this.’ He leaned closer, dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Listen. Here’s something to lift your spirits. I didn’t get a chance to tell you yesterday. I’ve made an alliance.’

Robin raised his eyebrows.

‘Well, not
made
exactly,’ Bones said. ‘
Making
, I should say. But it’s just a formality. Six of us! Think of it, the ultimate company.’

‘Who are they?’ Robin said.

‘You’ll see. We’re meeting this morning, first light. Who would you like it to be? Come on, let’s get the other two, drag them out of that pit. This is our day. This is when it begins, I can feel it!’

The four of them waited beneath the north tower, on the slope that led down to the moat. Robin stood motionless, leaning back against the wall, his hood up, watching Bones pace back and forth. Rowly had sprawled his big frame on the
grass. Irish was on one knee and was digging in the soil with his knife.

‘They’re not coming, are they?’ Irish said.

‘Can’t believe I missed breakfast for nothing,’ Rowly said. ‘Loxley, you’ve always got some food stashed away. What can you offer?’

‘They’ll be here,’ Bones said. ‘They’re being cautious, that’s all. They can’t wait to come over, you’ll see.’

He didn’t look as confident as he was trying to sound. He continued to pace in the shadow of the tower, twisting fingers through his blond chin-beard. The citadel was rousing to full wakefulness – the echo of voices and the clopping of hooves and creaking of carts. Time was running out.

‘Forget it,’ Irish said, wiping and sheathing his knife. ‘They’re not interested. Let’s get back and—’

‘There!’ Bones said. ‘Here they come. Look. Yes, yes, this is it. Have I let you down yet?’

Sauntering out of the north gate were Joscelin Tarcel and Ayala Baptiste. Robin was impressed. These two would be perfect. Baptiste had only been at the academy a matter of months, but already he had earned himself the nickname The Beast. He was almost as big as Rowly, and equally fearsome in the combat yard. Joscelin Tarcel, quick on his feet, and crafty, was an excellent skirmisher.

‘What about it, eh?’ Bones whispered. ‘Think of it. The Beast standing defence with Rowly. Tarcel joining the rest of us in attack? I could almost feel sorry for the others.’

‘You will forgive our tardy arrival,’ Tarcel said, as they approached. ‘My friend Baptiste refuses to do business on an empty stomach.’

Rowly made a snorting noise.

‘But now time is short,’ Tarcel said in his slight Frankish accent. ‘Let us dally no longer. The Enterprise of Champions
is not known for the size of its war chest, so we will not be talking of coin.’

‘It would be insulting to us both,’ Bones said. ‘We offer a richer reward. Victory.’

Tarcel glanced at The Beast, who stood behind, expressionless. ‘You hear this, Baptiste. Victory. And look what we have here …’ He pointed to Irish. ‘Fyn MacDair. As good a swordsman as you will find, and peerless in the joust …’

Next he pointed to Rowly. ‘Ifor Rowland. The Destroyer. A formidable weapon in the mêlée, so long as somebody points him in the right direction …’

Rowly looked puzzled, clearly not sure if he was being praised or insulted.

‘Robin Loxley,’ Tarcel continued. ‘All but guaranteed to win the archery stage, and quicker than most running the gauntlet. And lastly Jack Champion. The famous Bones. He brings brains, and a certain rough guile. Join our skill and strength to their ranks, Baptiste, and we would stand every chance of claiming the coveted prize.’

‘So it’s agreed,’ Rowly said, standing, rubbing his big hands together. ‘We’ll go out there tomorrow and smash the rest to pieces.’

Tarcel looked at him and smirked. ‘No, we will not be joining you. Must I inform you why? Very well. Baptiste is the son of a Sicilian duke. My family, as you certainly know, stretches back to the Roman kings. In years to come, in real theatres of war, should we ever find ourselves on the losing side, Baptiste and I would prove prize assets. A ransom would change hands, our blood would remain unspilled. But you two …’ He pointed first at Robin, then at Bones. ‘A peasant and an alms-child. The pair of you, in defeat, would be worth less than stray dogs. You would be slaughtered with the foot soldiers and left for
the crows. Why would we devalue ourselves, even at this stage, by allying with the likes of you?’

Until this moment Baptiste, whose English was still poor, had shown little sign of following the conversation. But now he smiled.

Bones was clenching and unclenching his fists. ‘So you came out here purely because it amused you.’

‘Not at all,’ Tarcel said. ‘We meet in good faith, to negotiate. As you know, my company, unlike yours, has a full complement of six combatants. However, two of our number are proving … less than satisfactory. It occurs to me their ideal replacements are here. Ifor Rowland, the son of a marcher baron. Fyn MacDair, descendant of a Celtic prince, no? Talented both, and high-born, yet wedded to these scullions. The pair of you, I’m sure, would be more at home—’

‘You snake, you slimy crawling—’ Bones moved towards Tarcel; Rowly held him back. ‘You’re going in the moat,’ Bones said to Tarcel, struggling. ‘Let go of me, you big aurochs, let me get my hands on him, he’s going for a swim …’

‘You see, Baptiste,’ Tarcel said. ‘Master Champion attempts to play the nobleman, but now he shows his true colours. We will be hearing from you shortly, squires Rowland, MacDair.’

Tarcel and Baptiste, still smiling, turned and walked away. Bones twisted in Rowly’s grip and swore. Robin moved forward and put a hand on Bones’s shoulder.

‘Don’t give him the satisfaction,’ Robin said. ‘Can’t you see how much he’s enjoying himself. He wasn’t serious. He knows no one can split the four of us.’

He looked at Rowly, who was now staring out over the moat, and at Irish, who was digging in the earth again with his knife.

‘Right?’ Robin said. ‘He’s just trying to unsettle us. He knows we stick together.’

Rowly nodded.

‘Yes, sure, correct,’ Irish said.

Bones looked at all three of them, each in turn, but said nothing. They went together back to the north gate, and walked through the manor to the armoury, none of them saying a word.

The squires spent that morning in the near hills, endurance training with Sir Derrick. Beneath the sharp sun he made them run up and down the slopes, carrying one another pig-a-back. Then they tied ropes from the beech trees and Sir Derrick made them climb these, over and over, using only their arms.

When he had finished with them, Sir Derrick strode away without a word, leaving the squires sprawled in the grass. They were about to drag themselves back to the citadel when Sir Gilbert, their tactics tutor, came hobbling up the hill, carrying a sack across one shoulder.

‘It’s too hot to go back to that stuffy chamber,’ Sir Gilbert said, scratching at his pot belly. ‘We’ll sit up here beneath the mulberry trees, eh, what do you say? I’ve brought bread and cheese and we’ll drink from the stream.’

Gratefully Robin took his place in the shade, amid the chirping crickets and the slow bees. He broke bread with the other squires and they looked across the hills to the citadel.

‘No need to stare into dusty old books, not today,’ Sir Gilbert said. ‘There’s plenty to learn right here. An opportunity to practise your heraldry. See that banner, above Murdak Tower. Two foxes, rampant, on a blue and black field. Whose device is that?’

‘Morton Durrell, of the Marches,’ said Rex Hubertson.

‘Yes, very good. A fierce lord of the borderlands, by all
accounts. He should be one to watch in the joust. And there. Embattled walls. Blasted tree. Yellow and green.’

‘Tristan de Roye,’ said several squires in unison.

‘Very good, very good. The Count is a man of great means. His lands stretch across three realms, in Saxony and the Holy Roman Empire …’

While the lesson went on, Bones leaned across to Robin. ‘You don’t think they’ll do it, do you?’ he whispered. He nodded towards Irish and Rowly, who were sitting a little way apart, their heads bent together.

‘Of course they won’t,’ Robin said. ‘Tarcel is playing games. He wants you to think they could even think it.’

Bones looked over to where Joscelin Tarcel was sitting with Baptiste and two of his other lackeys. Tarcel glanced over his shoulder and smiled and turned to say something to Francis Tutt.

‘I don’t care if we win,’ Bones whispered, twisting fingers through his chin-beard. ‘So long as we score more points than that pampered bunch of—’

‘Master Champion,’ Sir Gilbert said. ‘Since you have so much to say, perhaps you could inform us whose colours are those, at the far end of the west wall …’

The lesson continued and the afternoon stretched away. Robin watched the pavilions rising, blue and yellow, on the display ground, and he felt the excitement and the nerves building. All the other squires were feeling the same, he could tell, and even Sir Gilbert was excitable as a child.

‘Listen,’ Sir Gilbert said. ‘The herald’s horn. Another competitor arrives. Who can tell me who this is, flying the serpent and the cross? Yes, correct, Sir Stephen Coldacre, the famous crusader, a hunting companion of the Lionheart no less …’

It was a glorious afternoon, the skylarks pouring down their
song, every blade of grass bending beneath the weight of an insect. A knight came out to exercise his warhorse, galloping up and down the lists, man and mount coated in steel, the thunder of hooves so heavy Robin thought he could feel it in the earth, even at this distance.

‘See here, yet more guests,’ Sir Gilbert said. ‘A prize for the first of you who … ah, no I see I’m wrong. My eyes are not so sharp as they once were.’

Robin looked to the road below and what he saw there caused a cold shiver at the back of his neck. Winding their way up from the river were four horsemen, but these were not earls or dukes. These were common soldiers, dressed all in black, apart from their crimson cloaks, and the image of a wolf’s head stark red against their breastplates.

‘The Sheriff’s Guard,’ said Egor Towers. ‘What are they doing here?’

‘You know what I hear about the Sheriff,’ said Richard Warbrittle. ‘He feeds his horse on human flesh.’

‘He flays peasants to the bone …’ said Henry Winchester. ‘Wears their skins as clothes.’

Several other squires joined in, their stories increasingly lurid.

‘… The man is a lunatic … declared war on the forest gods …’

‘Thinks he’s a demigod himself …’

‘… born in the wildwood … raised by wolves …’

‘Quiet down,’ Sir Gilbert said. ‘That’s quite enough. I don’t want to hear you talking that way, even in jest. You realize, I hope, that such tales were told of the Sheriff’s predecessor, and the man before him. Each Sheriff must don such legends, it seems, along with his robes of office. But such stories belong at the fireside of peasants. I don’t know the Sheriff personally, but I’m sure he deserves our respect. So then, a big
day tomorrow. Get yourselves to the dining hall, eat as much as you can beg or steal, then rest well. Ah, now, here comes another banner. The double dragon. Sir Arnold of Aragon, a modest mercenary once, in the pay of the Pope, but now risen to great heights, and a paymaster himself …’

As they walked back to the citadel, Sir Gilbert went on talking. Robin wasn’t listening. He was watching the Sheriff’s soldiers. Three now stood this side of the moat, while one was waved across the drawbridge. Robin realized his jaw hurt, he was gritting his teeth so hard. The sight of those crimson cloaks had stirred all the old anger and the heartache. The fire at the manor; Marian’s father stealing her away. Why had he done it? What part had the Sheriff played?

‘I said, what if it isn’t just a game? What if he’s got to them somehow?’ This was Bones, talking away at Robin’s side. ‘I mean, how much does friendship count for, weighed against a prize like that? If we lose those two we’re finished, before we even begin. What’s up with you, Loxley? Are you even listening?’

They walked into the sump of Saddle Hill and by the time they crested the next rise the lone soldier had re-emerged and all four horsemen were riding away.