Paul Doherty: The Darkening Glass

‘Impossible!’ I replied. ‘Templar power in England has been shattered. Everything worth seizing has been taken. Why should the king or Gaveston be interested in betraying harassed Templars to the Noctales?’ I turned away, uneasy, and stared across at a thick copse of wood, the path we’d taken from York snaking through it. I was about to look away when I started at a glint of steel.

‘ Jesu miserere! ’ I exclaimed, plucking at Demontaigu’s sleeve. I looked up at the sky, then back again: nothing. Yet. .

‘What it is?’ Demontaigu grasped my wrist.

I walked down into the shelter of the hollow, my abrupt departure attracting Ausel, who came hurrying over.

‘What is the matter?’ Demontaigu insisted.

‘Those trees.’ I waited until we’d walked a little deeper. ‘I am sure mailed men lurk there.’

‘No, no.’ Ausel shook his head.

‘Why not?’ I retorted. ‘I am not mad, Ausel, some maid calfing at the moon, full of fanciful notions that every bush is a bear. I am not hare-hearted; I know what I glimpsed. Who else would be hiding out here in the heathland?’

‘Mathilde is keen-eyed.’ Demontaigu, for all his doubts, believed me. ‘It’s logical. The Noctales must know we were coming here. They withdrew, waited and watched, just as they did when the others arrived here yesterday evening. A scout would alert them, and then they closed in.’

Demontaigu was convinced. He gestured back at the rim. ‘We could return and gape, but that would warn them. It’s best if we were gone from here as quickly as possible.’

‘Might they attack us here?’ I asked.

‘No.’ Demontaigu tightened the buckle on his belt. ‘We are too many, armed and ready. They hope we will take the same road back, then they will trap us. They’ll be waiting, all harnessed for war.’

I recalled the Noctales: a troop of killers, mercenaries, the scum from various cities, armed like men of war. They were accompanied by battle-dogs, great mastiffs with sharp teeth and crushing jaws, spiked collars around their muscle-thick necks. A swift riding horde of the sons of Cain.

‘We’ll warn the rest.’ Demontaigu pointed across the hollow. ‘It’s best if we return by different paths. Once we are off the moors and reach the villages, the Noctales will withdraw. They do not want any witnesses to their murderous slaughter.’

Demontaigu hastily summoned the others. He stilled protests and objections, declaring that swiftness not battle was their prayer for the hour. The group would leave, separate, seek out travelling merchant groups or the outlying villages, and meet again in York. It was quickly agreed. Estivet murmured a brief benediction and we all remounted to the heart-tingling jingle of harness, the creak of leather and the ominous slither of weapons being loosened in their sheaths. Estivet again murmured a blessing, to which Ausel spat out a curse that the tongues of demons would pierce the Noctales’ souls and they would grill in hell like bacon fat for all eternity. His sally provoked a few smiles. Hands were clasped, farewells made and we guided our horses out of the hollow and over the rim and scattered in a desperate, frenetic gallop.

Demontaigu and Ausel rode either side of me as we broke into a canter, streaming from the hollow in a thunder of hooves and flying dust. The stiff cold breeze whipped at my face. The ground beneath me became a blur, as did my two companions. My world was reduced to the thunder of our horses’ hooves, a deep sense of danger, the blood drumming in my ears, my throat narrowing as if to cut off its breath. I gripped the reins and murmured a prayer at the swift and dread turn of events. I had to remind myself that I was Domicella reginae , yet fleeing for my life across a wilderness as bleak as the souls who hunted me. Killers who would cut my throat only a few miles from the king’s own chamber. Eventually I calmed; I even wondered if I had been mistaken, then I heard the bell-like bark of great hunting dogs, a hollow, soul-searing sound that seemed to echo up from the caves of hell. Our horses began to slow, and we halted on the brow of a hill and turned. I caught my gasp of terror; it was not a time for the weak-hearted. Below us unfurled a scene from a nightmare. Men fleeing, swift shadows across the sun-dappled heath, whilst from the nearby woods streamed others, already breaking up as the hunting pack chose their quarry. More terrifying, before or alongside each cluster of horsemen, were those black racing shapes, the great war-hounds of the Noctales. Terror seized me. A group of four riders and a hound had already singled us out for pursuit. Demontaigu sat and stared, gauntleted fingers to his lips as if he might retch.

Ausel, however, leaned forward in the saddle, eyes narrowed, clicking his tongue.

‘Our garrons,’ he patted his horse’s neck, ‘are not as swift as theirs, but they are sturdier and more sure-footed. Those riders will never bring us to bay, which is why they have brought the dogs. They will close, panic our mounts and savage their legs. The dogs will bring us down. I’ve seen chieftains in Ireland do the same. Ah well.’ Ausel grasped the reins and pulled his horse round. ‘There is only one thing we can do.’

We continued our headlong gallop. Behind us the baying of the hound grew stronger as one of those long, sloping, ghastly shapes began to close. Ausel, however, led us on to a track-way that rose slightly between a marshy stagnant pool on our left and thick barbed gorse to our right. The moorland path was slightly off our general direction, but he urged us on up the track-way as it narrowed between two ancient, craggy outcrops of lichen-covered rock. We cantered through and down the path. Ausel reined in and dismounted, shouting at us to do likewise and demanding we prime the arbalests we carried. I fumbled with mine; Ausel collected it and Demontaigu’s, then waved us back. He crouched at a kneel, two arbalests beside him; the other he raised, pointing at the gap between those rocks. He was as calm and assured as any Brabantine mercenary. A loud howl rang out above the sound of drumming hooves. In a flurry of dust, the war-dog leapt between the rocks, ears flapping, huge jaws bared, a charging mass of muscular black flesh, terrible in its fearful beauty. It seemed unaware of Ausel; trained to pursue horses, it charged directly on. Ausel released the catch, and the squat barbed bolt whirred like some deadly bird. The hound, struck in his jaw, was maddened enough to carry on. Ausel raised the second arbalest, primed and ready. The hound rose in a leap. Again, the click of the catch. This time the bolt shattered the beast’s throat, yet still it hurtled on, its muscular body twisting to one side in a flurry of dust as it crashed into Ausel. Man and dog whirled in a dust cloud sprinkled with spurts of blood. They turned and rolled, Ausel’s war cry drowned by an ominous snarling, then it was over. The hound lay on its side. Ausel sprawled face down. I tried to shout, but my mouth was too dry. Then Ausel lifted his grinning, blood-splattered face and pulled himself up, brushing the dirt off his clothes.

‘No harm, no harm. Praise be to God.’ His smile faded. He gestured at the arbalests and ordered us to prime them again. Demontaigu had recovered. Only later did I learn about his deep fear of dogs after being attacked by one in his childhood. He gathered his crossbow and mine, our whole existence taken up by the threatening drumming of approaching hooves, and had a swift word with Ausel. Armed with arbalests, the two Templars separated just as the horsemen, cloaks billowing, breasted the rise, charging so furiously they had little time to realise what had happened. Ausel and Demontaigu knelt, crossbows up. The catches clicked and the bolts spun out, cutting the air to bring down the two leading riders. The ensuing chaos and confusion tipped a third out of his saddle as his horse reared in terror. The two Templars sped forward, sword and dagger out. Demontaigu was a skilled knight, but Ausel was a warrior born and bred, one of those men who knew no fear and relished the song of battle. The hunters became trapped in a lure of their own making. The three fallen riders were quickly dispatched with shrieks, groans and spurts of hot blood. The fourth, desperate to control his mount, turned to flee, but he was trapped on both sides, and dragged off his horse. Ausel, kneeling on his chest, roared as he plunged his dagger time and again into the man’s throat. Then he rose, staggered away and half crouched, staring strangely at Demontaigu, who moved along the corpses ensuring they were dead before whispering a requiem and sketching a blessing in the air. I walked over and stared down at one of the Noctales, his scarred face made uglier in death: the blood-spattered gaping lips, the blackening stumps of teeth.