The fourth animal sound came again: a low, unearthly moan that made the bones of Cedric’s face hum in sympathetic harmony. He closed his eyes and listened. Now he remembered where he had heard it.
Once he had seen a favorite horse dying of the bloating colic. The animal had been far gone: past hearing, past seeing, past feeling the hands of the men who stroked and slapped him. His awareness had narrowed to a bare and boundless field illuminated by a single point of pain.
It was another sight Cedric would not forget – how the glassy eyes had stared, showing white as horses’ eyes seldom did; how the lips had been pulled back in a grotesque, slobbering grin; and how the teeth had so tightly clenched they could not be opened even in death.
Until the groom had killed him with a hammer to the skull, the horse had not ceased making that sound – that low groaning that seemed to come out of the trembling earth and not the body that had collapsed upon it.
But if the body was groaning, it meant the body was still alive.
Cedric shoved Colban aside in his haste, but he slammed his shoulder against Conrad’s bulk to stop himself when he saw towards what he had been running.
It was not his father’s body on the floor but Alred’s.
Like the horse’s, Alred’s mocking eyes had rolled back until they were as white as his blanched face. His teeth were clenched and his lips curled back in a deathly, pink-foamed grin. And like the horse, he panted weakly for breath, except when he gathered his failing strength into one of those otherworldly groans.
Cedric had never known it, but men died just like animals.
And yet seeing animals slaughtered outdoors in the sunlight and the wintry cold had not prepared Cedric for this. He had not known so much blood could be in the body of a man, nor how so slick and glossy it would look indoors by torchlight, nor how sharp and metallic was its scent, slicing through the heavier, hot stench of sweat and urine and the smoke of a fretful, untended fire.
And though the wound was a confused mess of gaping fabric and snarled flesh, it was easy to tell what was what by the blood: it had soaked into the tunic and turned the cloth dark and dull, while it lay over the wound in a glistening sheen, as if to say, “Those are the vain trappings that make you call yourselves men; this is the meat.”
Men were made of meat. Men were nothing more than meat and blood, skin and bones. Cedric realized that men must even be made of the hated gristle that stuck between his teeth – that his Papa had always cut out of his meat for him when he was small.
He shoved himself away from Conrad and into a corner, just in time to vomit up all the meat he had eaten at supper – meat and blood and gristle and all.
He heard his father’s voice behind him, so high-pitched and shaking that it was less recognizable than his moans had been before.
“Look at me, Cedric,” he pleaded. “Don’t turn away from your Papa now.”
Cedric was only beginning to understand his father was still alive. He was also beginning to understand that his father was a murderer. He had seen a man hanged, from a distance, but he had never looked a murderer in the eye. He wiped his mouth and turned to look.
“I didn’t do it, runt,” his father whimpered. “I tried to stop him…”
Sigefrith flung up his head and roared, “I told you to keep your damned mouth shut! Only to talk! God damn you! Look where your talking got you!”
Cedric’s father sobbed and collapsed onto the floor, his long legs sprawling and his hands pressed against his ugly face: the hand that was bleeding and the hand that was bloody.
Then the King turned on the boys, still snarling, still savage as one of the razor-fanged wolf-demons of Hell.
“What are you three puling brats doing down here? Are you babies or are you young men?”
Colban whispered, “Papa…”
Cedric stepped up and said, “Young men, sire.” His voice too was unrecognizable, thin and shaky, and he was certain Sigefrith would not be fooled.
But Sigefrith was fooled. He planted one bloody hand on his knee to push himself to his feet, leapt over to the boys as if Alred’s body were no more than a ditch, and wiped his hands on his tunic as if Alred’s blood were no more than dust.
“Then you’d damned better start making yourself useful,” Sigefrith growled. “Listen up – I shall only say this one time.”
When Cedric saw no one else would reply, he whispered, “Yes, sire.”
“You three are going to go down and get three fast horses, and you’re going to ride to Paul as fast as you can ride – and damn the horses, and damn the dark. You know how to get there over the downs?”
“Yes, sire,” Cedric said.
Sigefrith smacked Conrad on the arm and barked, “You?”
Conrad peeped, “Yes, sire.”
“And if one of you falls, the other two keep riding. And if another one falls, the last one keeps riding, and you don’t go back for anyone until Paul’s on his way. Do you hear?”
This time he shoved Colban, eliciting a feeble, “Yes, Papa.”
“And if by God’s grace you all make it, Cubby, I want you to ride up to Nothelm and send Father Matthew here, and tell Aldwyn what’s happened. And not a word do you say to anyone else – do you hear me, boy?” When Colban did not immediately reply, Sigefrith grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him. “Do you hear me?” he roared.
“Yes, Papa…”
“And, Conrad, you ride up to the Abbey and send the Abbot to me. And when you come down, go get Malcolm. And you – ”
He paused, and all the hideous sounds his shouting had drowned out flooded up again: Cedric’s father’s sloppy sobs, his friends’ panting breaths, Alred’s groans, and Dunstan’s confused babbling as he alternated between begging his father to live and begging him to plead forgiveness and mercy of Christ before he died.
When he spoke again, Sigefrith’s voice was like a spar swirling past, and Cedric clutched at it gratefully. It was no longer savage, but strong and strengthening.
“You, runt, I need you to ride all the way across the river to Egelric and send him here. Can you do that at night?”
“Yes, sire.”
“You’ll have to take care of your horse, and if you fall…” He snorted and smiled slightly. “Don’t fall.”
“I won’t fall,” Cedric promised.
Sigefrith’s voice hardened again, and he spoke to all three. “And not one of you says one word about what you’ve seen here to any man, woman, child, or dog whom I did not just mention explicitly by name. Understood? Now go! We don’t have much time.” He turned to look back at Alred, and Cedric saw how his shoulders suddenly slumped. “God grant we have enough,” he muttered.
With Sigefrith looking elsewhere, Cedric felt his own strength drain away. He could not fool himself. He only longed to get down on the floor and crawl up beneath his father’s elbow, wrap his arms around his father’s chest, and lay his ear against his father’s heart to hear how strongly it still beat.
But the other boys were rigid with panic and fright, and Cedric knew Sigefrith’s smacks and shouts would only drive them so far before they tottered to a stop again. They would have to be led.
“Don’t just stand there, you babies,” he growled. “Come on!”
Chapters
Oh my god Alred, why wasn't Paul or Lena at the party?
And who are these new people at first I thought it was Nina but this elf lady or woman face is not as chubby's as Nina's.