“A wise man like you, stranger. You’ve known a long time now there’s no cure to save her. How will you bear it, what now lies in wait for her? Do you long for that day you watch your dearest love twist in agony and with nothing to offer but kind words for her ear? Give her to us and we’ll ease her suffering, as we’ve done for all these others before her.”
“Curse you! I’ll not give her to you!”
“Give her to us and we’ll see she suffers no pain. We’ll wash her in the river’s waters, the years will fall from her, and she’ll be as in a pleasant dream. Why keep her, sir? What can you give her but the agony of an animal in slaughter?”
“I’ll be rid of you. Get off. Get off her.”
Locking his hands together to make a club, he swung one way then the other, clearing a path in the water as he waded on, till at last he was before Beatrice, still fast asleep in her basket. The pixies were swarming over the animal skin that covered her, and he began to pull them off one by one, hurling them away.
“Why will you not give her to us? This is no kindness you show her.”
He pushed the basket through the water until the ground rose up and the basket was sitting on wet mud amidst grass and bulrushes. He leant forward then and gathered his wife in his arms, lifting her out. Thankfully she came back to wakefulness enough to cling to his neck, and they made faltering steps together, first onto the bank, then further, into the fields. Only when the land felt hard and dry beneath them did Axl lower her, and they sat in the grass together, he recovering his breath, she becoming steadily more awake.
“Axl, what is this place we’ve come to?”
“Princess, how are you feeling now? We must get away from this spot. I’ll carry you on my back.”
“Axl, you’re soaked through! Did you fall in the river?”
“This is an evil spot, princess, and we must leave quickly. I’ll gladly carry you on my back, the way I used to do when we were young and foolish and enjoying a warm spring’s day.”
“Must we leave the river behind us? Sir Gawain’s right surely that it will carry us all the more swiftly where we’ll go. The land here looks as high in the mountains as we ever were before.”
“We’ve no choice, princess. We must get far from here. Come, I’ll have you on my back. Come, princess, reach for my shoulders.”
Chapter Twelve
He could hear the warrior’s voice below him, appealing to him to climb more slowly, but Edwin ignored it. Wistan was too slow, and in general appeared not to appreciate the urgency of their situation. When they were still not halfway up the cliff, he had asked Edwin: “Can that be a hawk just flew past us, young comrade?” What did it matter what it was? His fever had made the warrior soft, both in mind and body.
Only a little further to climb, then he at least would be over the edge and standing on firm ground. He could then run — how he longed to run! — but to where? Their destination had, for the moment, drifted beyond his recall. What was more, there had been something important to tell the warrior: he had been deceiving Wistan about something, and now it was almost time to confess. When they had started their climb, leaving the exhausted mare tied to a shrub beside the mountain path, he had resolved to make a clean breast of it once they reached the top. Yet now he was almost there, his mind held nothing but confused wisps.
He clambered over the last rocks and pulled himself up over the precipice. The land before him was bare and wind-scarred, rising gradually towards the pale peaks on the horizon. Nearby were patches of heather and mountain grass, but nothing taller than a man’s ankle. Yet strangely, there in the mid-distance, was what appeared to be a wood, its lush trees standing calmly against the battling wind. Had some god, on a whim, picked up in his fingers a section of rich forest and set it down in this inhospitable terrain?
Though out of breath from the climb, Edwin pushed himself forward into a run. For those trees, surely, were where he had to be, and once there he would remember everything. Wistan’s voice was shouting again somewhere behind him — the warrior must finally have arrived at the top — but Edwin, not glancing back, ran all the faster. He would leave his confession until those trees. Within their shelter, he would be able to remember more clearly, and they could talk without the wind’s howl.
The ground came up to meet him and knocked the breath from him. It happened so unexpectedly he was obliged to lie there a moment, quite dazed, and when he tried to spring back to his feet something soft but forceful kept him down. He realised then that Wistan’s knee was on his back, and that his hands were being tied behind him.
“You asked before why we must carry rope with us,” Wistan said. “Now you see how useful it can be.”
Edwin began to remember their exchange down on the path below. Eager to start the climb, he had been annoyed by the way the warrior was carefully transferring items from his saddle into two sacks for them to carry.
“We must hurry, warrior! Why do we need all these things?”
“Here, carry this, comrade. The she-dragon’s foe enough without us growing weak with cold and hunger to aid her.”
“But the scent will be lost! And what need do we have of rope?”
“We may need it yet, young comrade, and we won’t find it growing on branches up there.”
Now the rope had been wound around his waist as well as his wrists, so that when finally he rose to his feet, he could move forward only against the pull of his leash.
“Warrior, are you no longer my friend and teacher?”
“I’m still that and your protector too. From here you must go with less haste.”
He found he did not mind the rope. The gait it obliged him to adopt was like that of a mule, and he was reminded of a time not long ago when he had had to impersonate just such a beast, going round and round a wagon. Was he the same mule now, stubbornly pushing his way up the slope even as the rope pulled him back?
He pulled and pulled, occasionally managing several steps at a run before the rope jerked him to a halt. A voice was in his ears — a familiar voice — half-singing, half-chanting a children’s rhyme, one he knew well from when he was younger. It was comforting and disturbing in equal measure and he found if he chanted along while tugging on the rope, the voice lost something of its unsettling edge. So he chanted, at first under his breath, then with less inhibition into the wind: “Who knocked over the cup of ale? Who cut off the dragon’s tail? Who left the snake inside the pail? ’Twas your Cousin Adny.” There were further lines he did not remember, but he was surprised to find that he had but to chant along with the voice and the words would come out correctly.
The trees were near now and the warrior tugged him back again. “Slowly, young comrade. We need more than courage to enter this strange grove. Look there. Pine trees at this height’s no mystery, but aren’t those oaks and elms beside them?”
“No matter what trees grow here, warrior, or what birds fly these skies! We have little time left and must hurry!”
They entered the wood and the ground changed beneath them: there was soft moss, nettles, even ferns. The leaves above them were dense enough to form a ceiling, so that for a while they wandered in a grey half-light. Yet this was no forest, for soon they could see before them a clearing with its circle of open sky above it. The thought came to Edwin that if this was indeed the work of a god, the intention must have been to conceal with these trees whatever lay ahead. He pulled angrily at the rope, saying:
“Why dally, warrior? Can it be you’re afraid?”
“Look at this place, young comrade. Your hunter’s instincts have served us well. This must be the dragon’s lair before us now.”