Stephen Lawhead - Hood

Speechless, Merian could but shake her head in wonder.

"All the baron's court have been talking about nothing else," said the young man. "I have seen the man that was taken, but he will speak of it no more."

"Why not?"

"For fear that the creature has left its mark on him and will return to claim his soul."

"Can such a thing happen?"

`Bien sur["The young man nodded again. "It has been known. The priests at the cathedral have forbidden anyone to make sacrifice to the phantom. They say the creature is from the pit and has been sent by the devil to sift us."

An exquisite thrill rippled through Merians frame-half fear, half morbid fascination.

"You live beyond les Marches," her companion said, "and yet you have no knowledge of the phantom bird?"

"None," replied Merian. "I once heard of a great serpent that haunted one of the lakes up in the hills-Llyntalin, it was. The creature possessed the head of a snake and the slimy skin of an eel, but legs like those of a lizard, with long claws on its toes. It came out at night to steal cattle and drag them down into the bottom of the lake to drown."

"A wyrm," the young man informed her knowingly. "I, too, have heard of such things."

"But that was a long time ago-before my father was born. My grandfather told me. They killed it when he was a boy. He said it stank so bad that three men fell sick and one man died when they tried to bury it. In the end they burnt it where it lay."

"I would like to have seen that," the young man said appreciatively. Smiling suddenly, he said, "My name is Roubert. What is yours?"

"I am Merian," she replied.

"Peace and joy to you, Lady Merian," he said, "this night and all nights."

"And to you, Roubert," she smiled, liking this young man more and more. "Have you ever seen a wyrm?"

"No," he conceded. "But in a village not far from our castle in Normandie, there was a child born with the head of a dog. By this, the father knew his wife was a witch, for she had had unnatural relations with a black hound that had been seen outside the village."

"What happened?"

"The villagers hunted down the dog and killed it. When they returned home, they found the woman and the baby were also dead with the same wounds as those inflicted on the dog."

"Here now!" interrupted a voice next to Merian. She turned to see Baron Neufmarche leaning across the empty place toward her. Glancing down the table, she saw that her father was deep in conversation with the Ffreinc nobleman next to him. "What is this nonsense you are telling our guest?"

"Nothing of importance, sire," answered the young man, retreating rapidly.

"We were speaking of the phantom in the Marches forest," volunteered Merian. "Have you heard of this, sire?"

"Hmph!" puffed the baron. "Phantom or no, it cost me five horses."

"The creature ate your horses?" wondered Merian in amazement.

"I did not say that," replied the baron. Smiling, he slid closer to her on the bench. "I lost the horses, it is true. But I am more inclined to the view that, one way or another, the soldiers were careless."

"What about the missing footman?" asked the young man.

"As to that," replied the baron, "I expect drink or too much sun will account for his tale." He paused to reconsider. "Still, I grant that he was a solid enough fellow. Whatever the explanation, the incident has much altered his mind."

Merian shivered at the thought of something wild and freakish arising in the forest the very forest she and her family had passed through on the way to Hereford.

"But come, my lady," said the baron with a smile, "I see I have upset you. We will not speak of such abhorrent things anymore. Here!" He reached for a bowl containing a pale purple substance. "Have you ever tasted fruinenty?"

"No, never."

"Then you must. I insist," said the baron, handing her his own silver spoon. He pushed the bowl toward her. "I think you will like it."

Merian dipped the tip of the spoon into the mushy substance and touched it to her tongue. The taste was cool and sweet and creamy. "It is very good," she said, handing back the spoon.

"Keep it," said the baron, closing his hand over hers. "A little gift," he said, "for gracing this celebration with your, ah, presence lumineuse- your radiant presence."

Merian, feeling the heat of his touch on her skin, thanked him and tried to withdraw her hand. But he held it more tightly. Leaning closer, he put his mouth to her ear and whispered, "There is so much more I would give you, my lady."

The knight called Guiscard, in command of eight doughty men-at-arms, ordered his troops to follow the tracks made by the missing oxen. Most of the hoofprints, as expected, led back toward the valley in the direction the wagons had come. A few, however, led out from the pen and down the hill to the nearby stream. "Here, men! To me!" shouted Guiscard as soon as he was alerted to this discovery. "We have them!"

When the searchers had assembled once more, they mounted their horses and set off together on the trail of the missing oxen, pursuing the track as it followed the stream, passing down around the foot of the castle work and behind the shoulder of the next hill. Once out of sight of the builders' camp, the trail turned inland, heading straight up over the hill and toward the forest a short distance to the northeast.

The searchers mounted the brow of the hill and started out across the wide grassy hilltop toward the leaf-dark woodland, blue in the distance and shimmering in the heat haze of summer. The tracks were easy to follow, and the soldiers loped easily through the long grass, slowing only as they approached the beeches, elms, and finger-thin fir trees that formed a protective bulwark at the edge of the forest.

Passing between the trunks of two large elms, the trail of the missing oxen entered the wood as through a timber gate. The light was somewhat poorer inside, but the beasts left good, well-shaped prints in the soft earth-and, occasionally, soft splats of droppings-which allowed the knight and his men to proceed without difficulty. A few hundred paces inside the wood, the ox trail joined a deer run, and the hoofprints of the four heavy-footed beasts mingled with those of their swift-running cousins.

The path traced the undulating hillside, rising and falling with the rock escarpment beneath it, until it descended into a deep-riven glen with a brook at the bottom. Here the trail turned to follow the trickle of water as it flowed out from the forest interior, eventually joining the stream that passed by the foot of the castle. They pushed on, and after a time, the banks became steeper and rock lined as the brook sank lower into the folded earth, dwindling to little more than a blue-black rivulet at the bottom of a ravine of shattered grey shale.

The searchers moved deeper into the forest, where the trees were older and bigger and the undergrowth denser. Sunlight came in dappled fits and starts, striking green glints from every leafy surface. When the search party came to the top of a ridge, Guiscard halted his men and paused a moment to survey the path ahead. The air was still and humid, the trail dark and close grown. The knight ordered his companions to dismount and proceed on foot. "The thieves cannot have gone much farther," Guiscard told his men. "The only grazing is behind us now. They will not want to stray too far from it."

"Who says the thieves intend to graze them?" wondered one of the men-at-arms.

"Valuable beasts like those?" scoffed the knight. "What else would they do with them?"

The man shrugged, then spat. "Eat them."

Guiscard glowered at the soldier and said, "Move on."

The trail pursued its way down the slope of the ridge beneath trees of ever-increasing size and age. The upper branches grew higher from the ground, lifting the roof of foliage and dimming the sunlight with a heavy canopy of glowing green leaves. On and on they went, and when the knight stopped again, the wood had become dark and silent as an empty church. The only sound to be heard was the rustling and chirping of small birds, unseen in the upper branches high above.