Alys Clare - The Enchanter's Forest

He had noticed with appreciation the improvement in the cuisine of his household. Why, he thought now, his pretty wife must be enjoying the delicious food and the costly wines as much as he, for he was sure she was putting on weight. She would not like that, he was convinced of it, for she wore her gowns in a style to show off the contrast between her full breasts and her tiny waist. But the more rounded contours of her body certainly pleased him. .

Perhaps tonight she would invite him back to her bed. It had been so long, so very long, since he had lain with her. While he could accept that, in her eyes anyway, there had been reasons before why she should withhold her favours, surely that no longer applied now? He had found the goose that laid the golden eggs and she, perhaps even more than he who was working so hard to ensure those eggs kept coming, was enjoying the benefits. Even that bitch of a mother of hers must grudgingly have to admit to herself, even if not to anyone else, that her son-in-law was turning out better than she had hoped.

Why, then, he wondered miserably, did he feel like a stranger in his own home? Why, on his regular visits back to the house to bring home the takings and check that all was well, did he have the distinct feeling that both women would have preferred it if he stayed at the shrine? Dear God — a surge of anger flared swiftly through him — did they think he liked living out there among the whining, whingeing pilgrims and the sweating, deceitful toughs who guarded the property? The pilgrims moaned about everything from the aches and pains that had driven them to the tomb to the quality of the food, ale and accommodation that he offered; the toughs were singularly dull-witted and to a man they stank. Was it unreasonable to expect a bit of a welcome from his wife and her mother when he came home for a bathe, a decent meal and a good night’s sleep? Especially when, each time he returned, he brought yet more money with him?

His earlier happiness had evaporated. Maybe I won’t go home, he thought mutinously. Maybe I’ll turn left when I quit the track that runs around the forest and instead of going home, head for London. I’ll find a nice little house and a comely woman to share my bed, and I’ll dress us both in fine velvets and silks and find the longest, showiest plume for my hat that money can buy.

It was a pretty picture but its appeal did not last long. There was only one woman he wanted in his bed; the trouble was, she did not appear to want him in hers.

He sighed. He thought, I’ll just have to-

He did not complete the thought. At that moment a sound immediately behind him startled his horse, which leapt forward in alarm. Clinging on — he had lost a stirrup — the man tried to gather the horse but it was alarmed and had the bit between its teeth. The dim light beneath the trees hid what awaited man and horse a short distance along the track, so that the first the man knew of it was when the rope stretched across the path at neck height took him under the chin and threw him backwards off his horse.

The horse, thoroughly terrified now, galloped off down the track, stirrups and money bags banging against its sides and adding to its panic.

The man lay quite still on the track.

After a moment a broad-shouldered figure materialised from out of the darkness under the trees. He stepped quietly on to the path, where he bent down over the prostrate figure and felt for a pulse, the stout club that he held in his other hand held ready.

There was no pulse; the encounter with the taut rope had broken the victim’s neck, just as the big man had predicted. Quickly he rolled the body off the path and a good distance into the undergrowth, pushing aside brambles and lodging the corpse deep in a thicket. He spent a few moments making quite sure he had left no sign that the vivid, surging greenery had been disturbed. Then he padded softly back along the track and located the place where he had tied the rope, deftly unfastening it and coiling it up in order to loop it over his shoulder. Pausing for only an instant to sniff at the night air and without another look at the shady and secluded spot where he had left his victim, he melted back into the forest. He would walk in the shelter of the trees and the undergrowth until he came upon the horse which, or so he guessed, would soon recover from its panic and slacken its pace until some tasty-looking clump of green and succulent summer grass caught its attention. When he came across it, grazing peacefully by the side of the track, the man would step out from beneath the trees and catch hold of its reins.

For now, the important thing was to get away from here. Leaving the body of the dead man to cool in the darkening night, he went silently on his way.

Josse and Joanna spent all of the next day travelling through the Broceliande forest. Observing keenly, Josse noticed another difference between the Breton woodland and the Wealden forest: here there was not that sense — so very strong in the Great Forest — of a large area where the outside world was made to feel unwelcome; it always felt as if the Wealden Forest were the zealously guarded and personal preserve of those creatures, animal and human, who lived within. Here, in contrast, roads and tracks criss-crossed the forest and there were even small settlements growing up in woodland clearings. Mankind seemed more welcome here, and it did not appear that his attempts to fell a few trees and cultivate a patch for himself and his family were treated with such threatening hostility.

They stopped at one of the forest settlements to fill up their water bottles at the village spring and to purchase food. At first Josse had been anxious about advertising their presence in this way. Were anyone from Dinan to be hunting for them and chance to come this way, one of the villagers would surely report that yes, they had seen a man and a woman travelling with a small child, adding details of when the strangers had arrived and which way they had gone. But then Josse, Joanna and Meggie had to eat; he put his misgivings to the back of his mind.

They bought bread, a hunk of rather crusty cheese, dried meat strips and some of last autumn’s apples. These were rather sharp but refreshing to a dry throat. Josse also bought a stone jar of cider, stowing it away in his pack with the aim of bringing it out with a flourish when he and Joanna had their evening meal.

His mind and body were full of her, singing with the delight of her. And she felt the same; he would have sworn she did, for her eyes kept returning to his and each time she gave him a sort of secret smile. Once, as if some particularly powerful reminiscence were stirring in her mind’s eye, she even blushed.

Tonight, he promised himself, will be even better than last night. .

Joanna was finding it quite difficult to recall that she and Josse were here for a reason, and that reason was not for the two of them to enjoy a sort of holiday out in the forest. She had both longed for and dreaded the moment when at last they would become lovers once again; she had known it would happen — had wanted it to happen — but she could not help the slight sense that she was somehow betraying a newer alliance in this re-forging of an old one. What would her people say if they knew she and Josse had made love and would continue to do so? What would the bear man think?

My people, she told herself firmly, would be happy for me. They — we — do not regard sex as the world does, as something strictly reserved for the marriage bed and, more often than not, the payment a woman makes in exchange for her keep; the duty she performs for her husband in order that she will bear him a son to whom he may pass on his wealth and his property. We see sexual joy as the gift of the Goddess, which is why we celebrate her major festivals by making love with whoever catches our eye. And as for the bear man. . She shrugged, for she did not know. What she guessed, however, was that had there been any obligation on her to keep herself chaste for him, then doubtless somebody would have told her. She wore the claw that was his symbol and that marked her out as blessed by his having chosen her. It was no secret that she had lain with him.