Yware gets a fright

“What are they doing?” Yware hissed.

Selwyn stepped back into the shadows with him and whispered, “Quit asking me! They’re still talking. They’re still looking at that horse.”

“Damn!” Yware squeaked. He squirmed and doubled over, clutching at his stomach, which appeared to swell and writhe beneath his tunic.

“Quiet!” Selwyn went back to peer around the corner of the stable.

“I can’t hold him for much longer!” Yware whimpered. “His claws are coming through the sack!”

“Oh!” Selwyn cried softly and turned back to him, grinning. “The Countess just rode through the gate! If she comes this way, that will distract them, and the grooms too.”

“Perfect! Aie!” he winced. “He’s trying to dig his way out.”

Selwyn went back to look, and after a moment waved him forward. “Come on!”

Yware trotted up to the corner and peeked around the side of the stable. His father and the King were standing with their backs to them as they waited to greet the Countess.

The two boys slipped around the front of the stable and into the first door. Fortunately the stall they wanted was close by – and empty. They ducked inside at once, and Yware began fumbling with his tunic. “Aie aie aie!” he repeated to himself in a whisper.

“Hurry!” Selwyn hissed. “We have to get him in there before they come!”

The boys had kidnapped a ferret from the ratter and had hidden him in a sack, and then hidden the sack in Yware’s tunic. But the little animal, drowsy at first, had awoken while they watched behind the stable and was now attempting to extract himself after the way of ferrets: by digging with his sharp claws.

Yware and Selwyn had few pastimes they liked better than watching the ratter at work, but it was one in which they were seldom permitted to indulge themselves. Today they had decided to concentrate their fun by doing a little ratting of their own. Neither could understand why their elders liked the delicate, finicky falcons for hunting when one could have the fun of ratting with ferrets, who were not only easy to raise, but cuddly and adorable when young.

This ferret, however, was old and angry, and once Yware had removed him from the rough sack, his dignity was further insulted when the boys immediately attempted to stuff him into a small hole beneath the boards of the wall. Thus, as soon as he could scratch and squirm away, the little animal repaid this treatment by doing the opposite of what was expected of him. He bounded out of the stall and went streaking through the door and across the open court to freedom.

Yware had not even the time to swear in frustration and disappointment. At once they heard a shrill scream, a confused clatter of hooves on the stones, and then Yware heard his father cry, “Edris!” in a voice he had not heard since baby Cynewulf had rolled himself over and over and off the edge of the bed on which he had been lying.

He and Selwyn looked at each other for a moment that seemed endless, each having come to the same sickening realization.

By the time they reached the court before the stable, Yware’s father and the King were already kneeling at the Countess’s head, and the rest of the people stood back, stunned. Even the groom who held the head of Edris’s horse stared at the woman’s body, rather than at the animal who was fighting his hold and trying to dance away. The ferret had long since disappeared.

Selwyn seemed to want to slink away as well, but Yware watched his father and the King with a harrowing sort of fascination. They had a dead or injured woman before them, and they seemed to know precisely what to do, and they did it together with practiced efficiency. The King laid his hand on her neck while his father opened her eyes and waved his hand over them. The King took her head between his hands and turned it from side to side while his father ran his hands down her arms and legs. At the same time they murmured curt questions and replies to one another. Yware desperately wished he could hear what they were saying.

An overexcited groom shouted, “I’ll go for my lord Earl!”

“No!” his father and the King shouted as one.

“By God’s blood,” Sigefrith said, “then I should have two people cracking their heads on the stones today!”

“Where is he, Sigefrith?” his father asked.

“Damn! I have no idea. I left him working in my study. He must still be there.”

“Where shall we take her?”

“To the bedchamber beneath the chapel. It’s the closest, and there are no stairs. I shall take her head.”

Yware’s father looked up at him as he stood to take Edris by the feet. “Yware! Thank God. Run up and keep Cenwulf out of the way, do you hear?”

“How?” Yware asked.

“Damn it, boy, talk to him! Annoy him! Do something! Simply keep him away from us and away from that room until we can talk to him.”

“But, Father – ”

“Go!”

“But – is she dead?” He had to know.

“No, she isn’t dead! Go on, boy! Got her?” he asked Sigefrith.

Yware ran for the castle, with Selwyn trotting half-​​heartedly behind. Yware slipped between the guards and into the tower, but the sudden dark after the bright sunlight of the court blinded him, and he stopped and blinked furiously.

Then he heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

“Oh!” Yware stationed himself at the bottom and blocked the doorway.

“What’s this?” his godfather scowled.

“Oh – you – ah… must pay the toll!”

“What’s the toll?”

“You must… go up and get me a quill!”

“When your knees have the age of mine, you will not think it such a fun game to climb again the stairs you have only just descended.”

“Please?”

“Pardon me, Yware, but I did have other plans this afternoon.”

“But the toll!”

“I shall pay the toll with the back of my hand if you don’t move.”

“But – please? Can you take me up and show me something?”

“Yware…” Cenwulf said menacingly.

“Hurry!” Selwyn said, for he had taken up his familiar post of lookout, and had seen the King and the Duke arriving with the body of the Countess slung between them.

“Yes, indeed, hurry out of my way, if you please,” Cenwulf scowled.

Yware could hear the guards bustle around outside as they made way. Then the door opened.

“Please?” Yware squeaked desperately. “Let’s go back up! Only a moment!”

“Edris!” Cenwulf wailed.

“Damn it, Yware!” his father snapped.

“I tried!” Yware squeaked.

“Edris!” Cenwulf cried again, and Yware had to leap aside as he charged through the doorway, regardless of any tolls.

“She’s not as bad as she looks,” Sigefrith soothed.

“Edris!”

“Make yourself useful and open the door, boy,” his father said to him.

Yware promptly made himself useful and then stood aside as the men carried Edris inside, with Cenwulf following, moaning her name.

“With that caterwauling, old man,” his father said, “you would have awoken her even if she were dead, which you will shortly see she is not.”

The men closed the door behind them once they had lain Edris on the bed, shutting Yware out in the passage.

“Let’s go up to my room,” Selwyn whispered.

“No!” Yware whispered in reply. “I want to see my father.”

“But what if they saw the ferret?”

“I don’t care. You go hide in your room if you want. I’m staying here.”

Selwyn scowled at him, but he left. Yware shook his head in disappointment at his friend’s cowardice and sat himself down against the wall to wait. He could hear the men talking quietly in the bedchamber, but he could not understand the words.

Nor could he hear the voice of Edris, and that frightened him more than he would have cared to admit to Selwyn. His father always grumbled that one of these days his stunts would get someone killed, and although Yware had always assumed that the someone would be himself, he realized now that it would be far worse if it were someone else. But who would have thought that a skinny little ferret could kill a tall, strong woman such as Edris?

He scrambled to his feet as his father came out of the room and pulled the door gently closed. His shoulders were slumped, but he smiled at Yware. “Still here?” he asked softly.

“Papa, Edris won’t die, will she?” he begged. He had momentarily forgotten that he did not intend to call his father “Papa” any longer.

“Not for many years, I think. She’s awake now.”

“She is?” Yware asked, his own shoulders sagging in relief.

“She’s a little confused now, but that is often the case.”

“How do you know? How do you know what to do?”

“Well, don’t you suppose I learned? So will you when you are a little older. Men are often injured in the head on the battlefield.”

“Were you ever?”

His father laughed. “You have always wondered how your Papa got so stupid, haven’t you?”

“Is that how?”

“That was a joke, Yware. But I assure you that, head wounds notwithstanding, you will find that I shall only get smarter as you get older.”

“Because of me?”

His father laughed again. “You are one of many reasons.”