The Medievals 1, page 13
part #1 of The Medievals Series
At one point earlier in the day, as the wagon was trundling along, Richard had spied a cloud through the hole that reminded him of a face. It was the face of the girl from the market, the girl from his dreams that wake him.
The cloud sat low enough in the afternoon sky that Richard could see it in full. It had eyes, lips, cheeks. It had wisps of hair that faded off into the blue. The likeness to the girl was uncanny, requiring little guidance from one’s imagination. There was even a nearby cloud that resembled the birthmark he had seen on her shoulder.
It was as if he was being visited by the girl herself.
And as Richard gazed at the cloud, he felt the cloud sharing his gaze, like the girl was looking right at him, as she had in the market. Only this time, their gaze lasted longer than a second. Instead, it endured for nearly an hour. In that time, the sun had passed behind the white puff, the girl’s features glowing. But while the light of the sun warmed the cloud, Richard sensed a chilly sadness in the girl’s face.
No, not sadness, Richard had thought. Distress.
Richard continued to be transfixed by the cloud until the sky stretched it apart, the girl pulled from him by the will of the firmament. And then he was alone in the darkness of the barrel again.
◆◆◆
Splikt. Splikt.
Drops of rain tap on the lid of the barrel, waking Richard from a brief sleep. He had not meant to fall asleep, but the gentle rocking motion of the wagon and the music of the forest had a soporific effect on him, and he must have surrendered to his heavy eyelids.
Out of his ring-shaped window, Richard can see that the sky has dimmed with the darkening clouds and the retreating sun. Even in the fading light, the colors of the forest seem more vivid than any forest he has ever seen.
The forest floor is overrun with an unfamiliar golden moss, and its wildflower seems to shine from within, a luster only made richer by the rain. The trunks of the trees are enormous, rivaling the width of the castle’s turrets. And the thick, sinewy roots of the broad trunks seem to flex their gnarled arms out of the mossy ground. Meanwhile, threaded vines reach down from the sky, dangling into Richard’s narrow view.
The forest is beguiling. Richard wonders why anyone would want to build a wall to keep people from entering these enchanted woods.
Richard hears the sound of the falling rain as it grows louder and louder until Richard realizes that he is hearing two different noises that have joined together: the rain hitting the earth and the leaves and the wagon; and the rapids of a turbulent river.
Then, Richard can hear the clopping of horse hooves on wood, and he realizes that they are going over a small bridge, crossing the river.
Through the hole, Richard eyes the rushing waters that pass just beneath the bridge. The river is raging, its many tongues licking at the muddy banks. As he watches the whites of the rapids, Richard imagines what it would feel like to fall into such water, the merciless river swallowing him whole.
He massages his throat as he wonders what it would be like to drown, unable to breathe. A sense of peril seizes him. It is a rare feeling for Richard, since his life has been spent under constant protection. The closest he has come to death and danger was up on Mount Saurian; but his father was there to save him.
Out here in the Beyond, though, Richard’s life is now in his own hands. And he wonders if he has not made a mistake sneaking off simply to prove himself.
◆◆◆
Later, the rain has stopped.
The day has yielded unconditionally to the night; and a cold moonlight has draped itself over the forest. Without the rain, the pattering song of the trees has quieted. And over the past hour, as the darkness has leaned into the woods, the silence has been punctuated only by the wet clopping of the horses. Even his unsuspecting travel companions have been without word or sound for the past hour.
While Ivanhoe has spoken sparingly and only when the journey demands it, and while the thief, Loxley, seems content whistling a merry tune, El Cid has proven to be a man of many words.
Before they passed through the Mori Gates earlier in the day, El Cid had spoken without pause since leaving the castle walls, filling the air around him with impossible tales of daring back in his homeland. The unnaturally large man, with his sable hair reaching down his back and his skin the color of wet sand, has a strange way of speaking: instead of saying ‘I’ or ‘me’ when talking about himself, he insists on referring to himself as El Cid. (“El Cid has killed hundreds of men. This is why the wicked men who rule Espana -- Los Travieso -- fear El Cid.”) It took Richard some time before he realized that the man was recounting his own exploits and not someone else’s.
Richard’s ability to hear El Cid’s stories depended on the forgiveness of the wind as they travelled through the northwest passage these last two days. But Richard has been able to piece together some of the splintered details of the man’s life.
As El Cid tells it, he was born on Lamora, a remote and rocky island off the coast of Spain. There, he had five brothers and sisters. And, unbelievably, they were all bigger than him, which means they were no less than ten feet tall.
When El Cid was no longer a boy but not yet a man -- an age Richard knows well -- the island of Lamora was attacked by heothuks, wolfish beasts of land and water that breed in the Maddening Shallows. His family fought tooth and nail to push the bloodthirsty heothuks from their island shores, but only El Cid survived the assault.
Somehow, and this is a piece that Richard must have lost to the wind, El Cid was later recruited into the Spanish army. According to El Cid, he quickly proved himself to be the “greatest warrior touched by the light of the sun.”
In his first turn on the battlefield, El Cid claims to have struck down twenty men with each swing of his sword. He then won campaign after campaign for his King; and as he amassed fame and titles on the mainland, he also earned himself the name El Cid, which means The Conqueror in his native tongue.
Richard has never heard of El Cid or his exploits before this journey, and so the Spaniard’s tributes to his own heroism have the air of grand delusions. And, of course, there is the question of how a man capable of conquering an entire army can find himself locked away in a foreign dungeon, thousands of miles from his home. Why would he ever allow himself to be exiled?
Still, Richard finds the Spaniard entertaining. And there is something in the giant man’s voice -- the way his accent is able to mix honey and grit and shape it into charm -- that makes Richard want to believe El Cid’s tales.
But El Cid’s stories have become less and less frequent since they traveled beyond the Northern Barrier and entered the Eternal Forest. And with the arrival of night, the thief has muted his whistling. No doubt, the trio has deemed it wise not to alert the wild beasts of the forest to their presence.
There are things out there -- dark and dangerous things -- that are beyond your imagining. Richard feels a chill in his spine as he remembers his father’s words.
Suddenly, the wagon slows, then stops, pulling Richard from his thoughts.
“We will rest the horses here,” Richard hears Ivanhoe say to the other two men, a flinty command in his voice.
Richard hears the three men just outside the barrel, quickly setting up camp, striking a fire, feeding the horses. Their feet slosh in the wet earth after so much rain.
As the men move about in the night, Richard notices there is no conversation between them. No fellowship formed by their two days of travel.
“You will take the first watch,” Ivanhoe orders one of the men.
“Sir, yes, sir,” Loxley replies, and Richard can hear the taunting irony in his voice.
The thief has shown scant deference for Ivanhoe’s leadership during their travels. His manner is a thinly disguised slight, a dismissal of courtesy and hierarchy. When Richard is afforded the view, he has noticed that while Loxley’s eyes often hide in the shadows of his hood, they betray a natural contempt for authority.
Richard is not used to such blatant disregard for the chain of command. Even if Ivanhoe’s knighthood was stripped of him years ago, the King has still appointed Ivanhoe the leader of this search party, and he deserves the respect of the men he is leading.
But then again, Ivanhoe does not seem to have the interest or will to lead, and he seems unfazed by Loxley’s taunts. Richard wonders if his father made a mistake placing Ivanhoe in charge of these men. He wonders if these three men are capable of working together in order to rescue the Descendant.
Loxley moves into Richard’s limited view as the hooded man sits down on the ground, leaning his back against a tree, settling into the first watch as the other two men rest. He pulls a small round fruit from his pocket, something exotic he must have plucked from a tree in this forest. Richard watches as Loxley skins the fruit with his thumb, then bites into the flesh, the juices dripping down Loxley’s chin and wetting the deep green cloth of the mantel covering his shoulders.
Richard’s stomach growls.
He is so hungry it hurts, and the sight of the fruit only worsens the pain. As he watches Loxley finish the fruit and then pitch the core into the fire, Richard wishes for just a nibble of the fruit’s remains.
With a bow and a quiver at his side, Loxley then pulls out a stick of wood and uses the heat of the fire to dry it. After he eyes the branch and judges it straight, Loxley reveals a carving knife, which he uses to whittle the ends of the stick into an arrow. Then, he carves a notch at the end of the arrow’s shaft. From another sack, he pulls an arrowhead, already shaped from bone. And then, finally, he gently adds the fletchings to the end.
Loxley works slowly, and with care.
Richard has seen many archers stringing bows and notching arrows. And he has plenty of experience handling the weapon. But he has never seen someone so delicate and precise in their work with an arrow. Not even Master Cheng. Loxley seems to have elevated the process to an artform. And he handles the finished arrow with affection, as if in his mind he has given the newly formed arrow its own name.
Loxley gently tucks the arrow into his quiver and then reaches for another stick. But as he does, something behind Loxley -- deep in the forest -- catches Richard’s eye.
There is a figure in the distance, the light of the moon outlining a person hiding in the shadows.
And the figure is watching the camp.
Stalking them.
As Loxley holds another stick out over the flames, unaware of the shadow lurking behind him, Richard presses his eye against the hole in the barrel, straining to see against the darkness.
The figure is dressed fully in black, and Richard is reminded of the style of dress worn by warriors in the Lands of the East, the same style that Master Cheng wears in the training room. And while Richard tries to see the features of the stalker’s face, all he can make out through the darkness is a figure caught in shadows.
But a blink of Richard’s eyes, and the figure is gone.
Vanished.
Richard scans the forest, looking for any hint of the stalker hiding behind one of the gigantic red-barked trees. He searches the shadows formed in the moonlight, but Richard finds nothing, leaving him to wonder if there was anyone there in the first place. Or whether it was simply a trick of the light. Or a delusion born of hunger.
Richard pulls his focus back to Loxley. The thief has finished with his arrows. As he gets to his feet, Loxley slings the freshly loaded quiver over his shoulder along with his bow. Then, after taking a long look at El Cid and Ivanhoe to ensure they are asleep, Loxley moves to the wagon, where he starts stuffing his burlap sack with breads and fruits.
What is he doing?
Richard continues to watch with curiosity as Loxley fills his sack to the brim before tying it closed. Then, Loxley walks away from the wagon and off into the trees, leaving the camp.
The thief is absconding with their food!
Even worse, Richard thinks, Loxley is abandoning their quest.
Richard panics. He’s caught in a conundrum: he cannot let the thief get away; but in order to stop him, Richard will have to reveal his presence to the three men.
As Richard watches the back of Loxley’s hood disappearing into the shadows, he can feel the hair on his arms rising, prompting him to a decision.
He throws the lid off of the container and scrambles out into the bed of the wagon, aiming to stop Loxley. Instantly, a pain seizes the upper muscle in Richard’s right leg and he stifles a yelp. Richard realizes that his legs have been tucked to his chest for so long that they have forgotten how to work. In addition, his upper arms and chest are sore from the struggle with Ivanhoe back at the cottage in Rodina.
He quickly massages the neglected muscle, working the pain out of his leg. Then, after grabbing a sword from the stockpile of weapons, Richard rolls free of the wagon and limps away from the camp, doing his best to chase down Loxley.
With his sword leading, Richard moves through the trees as quickly as his sore legs will allow, his head constantly scanning for Loxley in all directions as if his neck is a swivel.
“Sumpthin’ I can help you with?”
Richard stops and whips his head to the left to meet the tip of an arrow, Loxley’s finger holding back the taut string of the bow. Away from the fire and outside the light of the moon, Loxley’s dark skin makes him blend in with the night, with only the whites of his eyes and his teeth to give him away.
“What’s a wheatstalk like you doing out here wandering these woods alone at night? You know there’s beasties about, don’t you?” Loxley asks.
Richard wonders just what beasts do wait in the shadows. He has heard stories of gryphons and saurians, of frost urchins and bugbears, of djinns and banshees. Before now, many of these names were linked only to whispered tales. But as he stands in the Eternal Forest, he thinks anything is possible.
Richard tries to answer Loxley, but his voice hitches in his throat with the sight of an arrow aimed right at him, only inches from his forehead. He swallows his fear, and then tightens his fingers around the hilt of the sword.
“Don’t get twitchy," the thief warns. "When you get twitchy, I get twitchy. And then you lose an eye before I even get to know anything about you. Like your name. Or your drink of choice. Or what you’re doing following me.”
Richard stares at the head of the arrow as he considers how to answer Loxley. Ironically, if the thief does let go of the bowstring, Richard will be killed by one of the very arrows he just watched Loxley make.
“I am--” Richard stutters as he tries to get the words out. “You cannot just abandoned the mission!”
Confusion pinches Loxley’s eyebrows together for a moment. Then he smiles and lets out a chuckle.
“You’re a funny one. Who are you again?” Loxley asks.
Richard realizes that Loxley doesn’t recognize him. They were not introduced back at the castle. Richard wonders if he can use this anonymity to his advantage.
“He’s the young Prince,” a gruff voice calls from the dark.
And now Richard’s identity has been revealed.
Richard turns to see Ivanhoe come from the shadows, El Cid trailing him. Both men have their weapons at the ready.
El Cid wields his huge, ornate sword, a blade the length of Richard. And Ivanhoe has his weapon of choice: a battle axe. (Richard finds it odd that Ivanhoe does not carry a sword, the weapon that brought him fame in the kingdom.)
“As in, the son of King Henry?” Loxley asks, seeming to study Richard for a moment. “This guy? Really? No.”
Ivanhoe nods, his one eye locked on the thief. Strangely, he doesn’t seem surprised to see Richard.
Loxley relinquishes his bow to his side and whistles as he looks Richard over again. “Must’ve been windy the day the apple fell from that tree.”
Richard’s esteem sinks as he hears the judgement in Loxley’s voice. Even to a thief, Richard does not seem fit to be the son of the King.
“You intending to leave us in the lurch, thief?” Ivanhoe asks with a threat in his voice, his one eye focused on Loxley’s sack.
“Who, me? Piffle. I heard a noise out in these here woods and came for a gander. Found this sprig loitering.”
“He is lying!” Richard appeals to Ivanhoe. “I saw him stuff his sack full of rations and walk off into the woods with no intention of returning.”
“Poppycock,” Loxley says with a wave of his hand, as if dismissing Richard.
“El Cid does not believe the thief,” the Spaniard says, towering over Loxley.
“Listen here, you big ox. For starters, I have a name. Loxley. You would be kind to use it. And as a second point, I resent the accusation that I would--”
But before Loxley can finish, El Cid rips the burlap bag from Loxley’s shoulder, the breads and fruit spilling out onto the forest floor.
Loxley’s been caught red-handed, but one would not know it by his calm.
“That proves nothing,” Loxley says, determined in his lie. “I stand by my original story. I came out here -- braving the dark -- risking my neck -- while the two of you slept peacefully thanks to my services, I might add -- and I found him in the shadows, lying in wait. Perhaps ready to slit our throats. So the way I see it, you should be thanking me.”
“Prince Richard has no intentions of slitting our throats,” Ivanhoe says. “Should he have so wished, he had ample opportunity to do so these past two days as he stowed away in one of our barrels.”
“How did you--?” Richard begins to ask.
“Rose water,” Ivanhoe replies. “It is the perfume used to wash the royal garments. And men who have come from prison are unlikely to bear such a scent.”
Richard had taken for granted Ivanhoe’s keen sense of smell that makes him such a skilled tracker -- the reason his father chose him to lead this quest.
“You were wise to him these past two days and said nothing?” Loxley asks, perturbation filling his question.
