Bruce Holsinger - The Invention of Fire

Be not blind. The coming day would tell. In the morning, in the hours before Exton’s Riding, I would either confirm or put to rest this rising suspicion. Then I would know. I closed my eyes that night awash in doubt, aware that the morrow might well bring disaster, and that the blame would forever be my own.

That morning the company reached the southern border of the County Palatinate of Durham and the liberty of St. Cuthbert’s land. Winds gusted down from the north in great rushes of cold, moaning through the scattered trees, gathering the brittled leaves into dry spirals that shot skyward before lowering to the road to swirl among heads and hooves. The land around them had changed over the last several days, as the company snaked through the northern moors, the endless heaths spreading out in all directions, large stones littering the barren hills on either side of their route.

As they rounded one of these low hills Margery saw an obstacle on the road ahead. A bar lay across the way, a log resting atop two pillars to each side of the way. On the eastern hand there was a small tollkeeper’s encampment, with a stone hearth, two rough huts, and an open pavilion, where a pair of soldiers lounged by the road on an enormous rock the size and shape of a lord’s table. At the approach of the company one of them pushed himself off and ambled slowly toward the bar, gnawing on a leg or flank bone as he looked them over.

She shivered, willing the man to hurry it along. They had ridden that morning in the middle of the company, staying largely silent, the anticipation and dread only mounting as they neared their final destination.

“Fourpence a head before the town,” said the guard between bites, head sweeping left and right, mouth still working the meat. Farpence a head afore the toon . A northman’s tongue, the words barbed and bristling in her ears. “And a word of advisement for visitors to the lands of St. Cuthbert’s between Tyne and Tees. Though you’re yet a full seven leagues out from Durham, here the bishop is as good as your king, see?”

He waited for their nods and yeses.

“Vary good. Now f’yar coin.” He hailed his companion and the two of them proceeded to lower the bar, first one end, then the other, taking their time. Once the log lay flat on the ground the pilgrims crossed into the Palatinate, the horses stepping delicately over as their riders’ coins clinked into a shallow clay pot the first soldier held up for the purpose.

Robert paid their toll along with the others and they passed over the bar, into the bishop’s liberty of Durham, one large and meaningful step closer to the Scottish marches. She glanced over her shoulder as the remainder of the company made their payments. The sisters Constance and Catherine, riding near the back again that morning, had paused by the bar-to negotiate a smaller toll, she assumed, and why would they not, given their undisputed sanctity?

Yet as she watched she saw Constance point up the road-toward her. She turned away. Her heart thrummed in her ears, the day darkening before her.

She considered saying something to Robert, weighed the chances, but what would she say, what could he do? Flee across the countryside and they would be hunted down like harts. Stand and fight and they would surely be downed on the spot. He had no sword, no bow, no arrows to nock in his skillful and killing way. Instead she said a prayer, watched the road before her, and braced herself tightly in her saddle.

And soon felt somewhat reassured. She heard no hooves of pursuing mounts, no shouts from behind. When she next turned Catherine was speaking urgently to her scowling sister. Their imprecations to the tollkeepers seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. Another respite, for how long she could not know.

In Derlinton they found lodgings in a private house, the company dispersing for the night around the village. Robert slept soundly. Margery was fitful, unable to keep her eyes closed, much less sleep. Finally an uneasy slumber came, and with it a dream of a new home, and the lowland hills.

She was just waking from her first sleep when she heard it. The soft moan of a door, a shoe crackling the rushes in the next room. Their host? She thought so, but saw no light beneath their door.

Then she heard the whispers. Two men, perhaps three. They were outside, beyond the shutters. She clutched Robert’s arm, shook him awake. “Someone is here,” she whispered in his ear.

His eyes came open and he leapt up, immediately alive to the danger. There were no weapons in the room, nothing to use to defend themselves. He grasped her arms and moved her against the wall farthest from the door and window, pushing her head down until she was huddled on the floor. Then he reached up and pulled himself into the rafters above.

The silence lingered. A dog barked faintly. The door burst open. The shutters cracked. The first intruder came through the door, his short sword a vicious gleam in the night. He went straight for the pallet, assaulting it with four strokes before realizing it was empty.

From the rafters Robert came swinging down to kick the man against the wall. The sword clattered to the ground and he grasped it just as the shutters splintered with another crack. He still had the surprise on them, and took the first man through the window with a thrust to the gut. The second, sensing the danger, shouted for his fellows, but Robert was already on the inside man. There was slicing, hacking, grunts of pain, then Robert grabbed their attacker and twisted his neck to a snap. Two dead inside, one outside and warned.

He spun toward her. “Take whatever you can.” He struggled into his coat as she gathered some of her clothing, the purse of coin that had gotten them here. Bearing what she could she followed him into the main room and outside toward the stable.

“Who’s there?” came a shout from the house behind them.

As they ran they looked wildly left and right for the third assailant. Nothing. They reached the stable, open to the night. Four horses. They chose the two they knew, but no time for saddles. They led the horses out of the barn.

“Mount,” he said, cupping his hands. She stepped up and he threw her over the beast’s bare back. As she spun on the animal she heard the thud of footsteps behind him, saw a silver slash in the moonlight. He grunted in pain and fell to the dirt. The attacker raised his sword.

Margery heeled her horse. It jumped toward the attacker, startling him, giving Robert just enough time to kick the man’s legs from beneath him. There was a brief struggle on the ground, then it was over.

As more shouts came from the house and street he rose and pulled himself onto the other horse. She kicked her own in the flanks. They were off, skirting along the stable and out to the street, the shouts of the townsfolk ringing out behind them. They rode north along the central way. As they neared the upper edge of the town a door opened to the left. A candle flared in the darkness. Two faces over the flame. Constance and Catherine, their eyes wide with wonder and fright.

Margery and Robert rode through the night in silence, the fear clawing at their backs. He was hurt, badly, though he never moaned nor spoke a word of complaint. Their mounts took the road at a steady pace, not too swiftly to tire, nor too slowly to risk apprehension from behind.

Dawn came on without incident. They must have been less than a league from Durham, she reckoned it, and still they had not encountered another group of riders, though that fortune would surely not last. As they forded a wide and slow-moving creek he spoke for the first time in hours.

“Margery,” he said. “Margery, I must stop now.” His voice was weak, sickly. She felt her only real terror since that night in the woods.