Ariana Franklin - The Serpent’s Tale

He set his horse down the hill to the valley, cloak flying. Less precipitately, the others followed.

The entrance in the labyrinth’s wall when they reached it sent the men off again. Instead of an arch, two stone ellipses met at top and bottom, forming a ten-foot cleft resembling the female vulva, the inference being emphasized by the stone-carved surround in the shape of snakes coiling into various fruits and out again.

It was difficult to get the horses to enter, though the cleft was big enough; they had to be blindfolded to step through, showing, in Adelia’s opinion, more decency than the remarks made by the men tugging at their reins.

Being inside wasn’t nice. The way ahead of them was fairly wide, but blackthorn covered it, shutting out the sun to enfold them in the dim, gray light of a tunnel and the smell of dead leaves.

The roof was too low to allow them to remount. They would have to walk the horses through.

“Come on.” Rowley was hurrying, leading his horse at a trot.

After a few bends, they could no longer hear birdsong. Then the way divided and they were presented with two tunnels, each as wide as the one by which they’d come, one going left, the other right.

“This way,” said the bishop. “We turn northeast toward the tower. Just keep a sense of direction.”

The first doubt entered Adelia’s mind. They shouldn’t have had to choose. “My lord, I’m not sure this is…”

But he’d gone ahead.

Well, he’d been here before. Perhaps he did remember. Adelia followed more slowly, her dog pattering after her, Jacques behind him. She heard Walt bringing up the rear, grumbling. “Wormhold. Good name for this snaky bugger.”

Wyrm hold. Of course. Wyrm. In marketplaces, the professional storytellers-that the English still called skalds-frightened their audience with tales of the great snake/dragon that squirmed its way through Saxon legends just as the mimicking tunnels coiled through this labyrinth.

Wistfully, Adelia remembered that Gyltha’s Ulf loved those stories and played at being the Saxon warrior-what was his name?-who’d killed one such monster.

I miss Ulf. I miss Allie. I don’t want to be in the Wyrm’s lair.

Ulf had described it to her with relish. “Horrible it was, deep in the earth and stunk with the blood of dead men.”

Well, they were spared that stench at least. But there was the smell of earth, and a sense of being underground, pressed in with no way out. Which is what the Daedalus who concocted this swine intended , she thought. It explained the blackthorn; without it, they could have climbed a wall, seen where they were heading, and breathed fresh air, but blackthorn had spines that, like the Wyrm, tore flesh to shreds.

It didn’t frighten her-she knew how to get out-but she noticed that the men with her weren’t laughing now.

The next bend turned south and opened into three more tunnels. Still unhesitating, Rowley took the alley to the right.

After the next bend, the way divided again. Adelia heard Rowley swear. She craned her neck to look past his horse for the cause.

It was a dead end. Rowley had his sword out and was stabbing it into a hedge that blocked the way. The scrape of metal on stone showed that there was a wall behind the foliage. “Goddamn the bastard. We’ll have to back out.” He raised his voice. “Back out, Walt.”

The tunnel wasn’t wide enough to turn the horses without scratching them on head and hindquarters, not only injuring them but also making them panic.

Adelia’s mare didn’t want to back out. It didn’t want to go on, either. Sensibly, it wanted to stand still.

Rowley had to squeeze past his own horse to take hers by the bridle in both hands and push until he persuaded the animal to retreat back to the cul-de-sac’s entrance, where they could reform their line.

“I told you we should keep going northeast,” he said to Adelia, as if she had chosen the route.

“Where is northeast?”

But, irritated, he’d set off again, and she had to try and drag her reluctant mare into a trot to keep him in sight.

Another tunnel. Another. They might have been wrapped in gray wool that was thickening around them. She’d lost all sense of direction now. So, she suspected, had Rowley.

In the next tunnel, she lost Rowley. She was at a division and couldn’t see which branch he’d taken. She looked back at Jacques. “Where’s he gone?” And, to the dog, “Where is he, Ward? Where’s he gone?”

The messenger’s face was grayish, and not just from the light straining through the roof; it looked older. “Are we going to get out, mistress?”

She said soothingly, “Of course we shall.” She knew how he felt. The thorned roof rounded them in captivity. They were moles without the mole’s means of rising to the surface.

Rowley’s voice came, muffled. “Where in hell are you?” It was impossible to locate him; the tunnels absorbed and diverted sound.

“Where are you ?”

“In the name of God, stay still , I’m coming back.”

They kept shouting in order to guide him. He shouted in his turn, mostly oaths. He was swearing in the Arabic he’d learned on crusade-his choice language when he cursed. Sometimes his voice was so near it made them jump; then it would fade and become hollow, raving against labyrinths in general and this one in particular. Against Dame Dakers and her bloody serpent. Against Eve with her bloody serpent. Even, appallingly, after blackthorn tore his cloak, against Rosamund and her bloody mushrooms.

Ward cocked his ears this way and that, as if enjoying the tirade, which, his mistress thought, he probably was, being another male.

It’s women to be blamed, always women. He wouldn’t curse the man who built this horror, or the king who imprisoned Rosamund in the middle of it.

Then she thought, They’re frightened. Well, Walt may not be, but Rowley is. And Jacques definitely is.

At last a tall shape loomed out of the shadow ahead, leading a horse and coming toward her. It yelled, “What are you standing there for, woman? Get back. We should have taken the last turning.”

Again, it was her fault. Again, the mare wouldn’t move until the bishop took its bridle and pushed.

So that he shouldn’t be embarrassed in front of the other two men, Adelia lowered her voice. “Rowley, this isn’t a labyrinth.”

He didn’t lower his. “No, it isn’t. We’re in the entrails of Grendel’s bloody mother, that’s what, goddamn her.”

It came to her. Beowulf. That was the name. Beowulf, Ulf’s favorite among all legendary Saxon warriors, killer of the Wyrm, slayer of the half-human monster Grendel and of Grendel’s awful avenging mother.

“Waste bitch, boundary walker,” Ulf had said of Grendel’s mother, meaning she prowled the edge between earth and hell in woman’s shape.

Adelia began to get cross. Why was it women who were to blame for everything- everything , from the Fall of Man to these blasted hedges?

“We are not in a labyrinth, my lord,” she said clearly.

“Where are we, then?”

“It’s a maze.”

“Same difference.” Puffing at the horse: “Get back , you great cow.”

“No, it isn’t. A labyrinth has only one path and you merely have to follow it. It’s a symbol of life or, rather, of life and death. Labyrinths twist and turn, but they have a beginning and an end, through darkness into light.”

Softening, and hoping that he would, too, she added, “Like Ariadne’s. Rather beautiful, really.”

“I don’t want mythology, mistress, beautiful or not, I want to get to that sodding tower. What’s a maze when it’s at home?”