‘Who, in God’s name, is this Ursa?’
‘A performing bear.’
Asmoth was filled with remorse when she got back home. She had not intended to spend the whole night at the forge and was mortified that she had fallen asleep in the chair. The first thing which met her on her return to the mean hovel which she shared with her ailing father was his reproachful glance from the bed.
Pale, gaunt and wasted, he lay under a tattered blanket with only a faint hold on life. Her father was too weak to upbraid her and too weary to demand why she had deserted him for a whole night. But the accusation in his eyes was punishment enough for her. Overcome with contrition, Asmoth burst into tears and rushed to hug him warmly. The reunion only sent him off into a fit of coughing.
When she had fed him with some water and a crust of bread she turned her attention to the fire. It was the sick man’s one source of comfort throughout a cold night and her absence meant that it had gone out. Only tiny charred pieces of wood remained.
Asmoth told her father where she was going, then she went off to collect some twigs to start a fire and some logs to keep it in.
There was a copse nearby and she was used to foraging there for kindling. She moved about swiftly, gathering up twigs and dead leaves and anything else which might help to start a fire.
She came to a large bush and bent to pick up the branch which had snapped off from the tree which overhung it. The branch was enmeshed in the bush itself and she had to tug it hard to pull it free. A voice then seemed to emerge from the heart of the bush.
‘Asmoth?’
She let go of the branch at once and stepped back in surprise.
‘Boio?’ she said. ‘Is that you?’
Chapter Eleven
In a town as small as Coventry they had no difficulty finding a dwarf with a performing bear. One of them on his own would have been conspicuous enough but the two were unmistakable when together. Several people had seen them walking along the road to Coundon, a hamlet which lay to the north-west, so Ralph and Gervase set off in that direction. Gervase recalled that Coundon was a tiny part of the abbey’s substantial holdings in the county. Ursa and his master were still on ecclesiastical ground. They had not gone far. They were resting in a hollow which gave them protection from the wind and a degree of privacy. Hearing the approach of riders, the dwarf scrambled up the slope to see who was coming. The sight of men-at-arms moving at a steady canter was alarming, especially as their leader pointed a finger when the bearward appeared. They were after him. The dagger at his belt would be useless against such odds.
When Ralph brought his party to a halt they circled the hollow and gazed in amusement at the bear and his diminutive master.
Ribald comments were made by the soldiers but they were good-humoured and carried no threat. The dwarf relaxed and Ursa’s defensive stance was changed to a lazy roll on the ground. Ralph dismounted with Gervase. They stepped forward to the edge of the hollow to introduce themselves.
‘We were hoping to find you,’ said Ralph.
The bearward grinned. ‘You want a performance, master?’
‘Not now.’
‘It is no trouble.’
‘Another time.’
‘Ursa and I will be delighted to show you our tricks.’
‘Before so few of us?’
‘Two people are an audience,’ said the dwarf. ‘There are eight of you and that is more than enough to entice us.’
‘We have come in search of your help, my little friend.’
‘Yes,’ explained Gervase. ‘Huna told us about you. The old man with the donkey. All four of you spent the night together.’
‘Will I ever forget it?’ moaned the dwarf. ‘That donkey of his stank worse than Ursa. And such terrible noises from both ends of the beast. But Huna was a pleasant bedfellow. We talked long into the night.’
‘That is what he said.’
‘Then he performed his miracle and they seized him.’
‘We have spoken to the bishop about his case.’
‘Will they try him for sorcery?’
‘His fate may not be as bad as it seems.’
‘No,’ said Ralph. ‘Huna is used to living on his wits and he has talked his way out from beneath fulminating bishops before.
I think he will escape with no more than a warning. What interested us was that he said you spent a night in the Forest of Arden.’
‘It is true, my lord. We slept in a ditch.’
‘Not far from an old disused hut?’
‘We walked past it when we left.’
‘But you had to find your bear first,’ remembered Gervase. ‘We hear that he slipped away in the dark.’
‘Only to give me a fright,’ said the dwarf, rubbing the animal’s head. ‘He would never leave me for good. It was simply mischief.
Ursa could not sleep so he thought he would play another game with me.’
‘Where did you catch up with him?’
‘Close by that hut you mentioned.’
‘And how long had he been away?’
‘Long enough to have me in despair. It was just after dawn when I finally stumbled on him. Hiding in a clump of bushes, the rogue. Huna will have told you. I burst into tears.’
‘Was there anything on the bear?’
‘On him?’
‘Anything stuck to his fur. Leaves, bracken?’
‘Why, yes, but I was covered with them as well. The ditch was filled with them. The leaves were our only blanket. They got in his coat.’
‘Did it have any blood on it as well?’
‘Blood? No, why should it?’
‘He might have been in a struggle with someone.’
‘Not Ursa,’ said the dwarf, coming out of the hollow to confront them. ‘He is a performing bear, trained to obey. He is completely tame. Ursa only does what I tell him.’
‘Did you tell him to crush that barrel of fish yesterday?’
‘Ah. Huna told you about that, did he?’
‘Yes,’ said Ralph. ‘It is the reason we are here.’
‘Do not ask for that trick again. It is too expensive for us.’
‘We wonder if it is the first time that Ursa has done it.’
‘Broken open a barrel of salted herrings?’
‘Squeezed something to a pulp out of sheer devilry. Let me explain,’ said Ralph with one eye on the bear. ‘Earlier this week a man was killed in or near the Forest of Arden, possibly on the day when you chanced to pass through there. We saw the injuries.
The man’s ribs were cracked and his back broken as if someone had crushed him to death.’
‘It was not Ursa!’
‘Can you be sure?’
‘I would stake my life on it,’ said the dwarf, running back down the slope to take hold of the bear’s chain. ‘He has to perform in front of women and children whom he could kill with one swing of his paw but he has never so much as breathed angrily upon them. Ursa is tame. I raised him from a cub. He would harm nobody.’
‘Not if they were cheering his tricks,’ said Gervase, ‘but suppose that someone had provoked him? Suppose that someone jabbed at him with a dagger or a sword.’
‘Why would they do that?’
‘Because they saw a bear looming out of the darkness at them.
If the lord Ralph and I met the animal like that, we would both reach for our weapons. How could we know the creature was harmless? Our first instinct would be to defend ourselves.’ He went into the hollow to take a closer look at Ursa. ‘That was why I asked about blood. If he had been wounded in some way, he might have struck back.’
‘He is more likely to have turned tail and run.’
‘There are certainly no wounds on him now.’
Gervase peered at the animal then stepped back in disgust.
‘The fish,’ explained the dwarf. ‘That’s what you smelled.’
‘He seems a friendly enough animal, I must say,’ observed Ralph.