The Story of Silence

‘Mmmmm. Yes.’

Such reluctance and stammering was enough to make me want to set aside my tankard, unroll my blankets and curl up, story be damned. But the firelight cast hungry shadows on that face, set those grey eyes glowing, and I found that I wanted, I needed, to know this person.

‘Yes, I believe it does start with Cador. My father. Years before I was born. He served King Evan. They often hunted together.’

King Evan, who ruled all of England from the Humber in the north to the tip of Cornwall in the south, from Offa’s Dyke in the west to the sea in the east, had received word from a bedraggled messenger (who practically crawled into his hall bearing the message in a last gasp) that raiders had come ashore near Titchfield and put houses to flame. King Evan had been dining when the messenger arrived (for King Evan often liked to dine) and sent his beautiful queen Eufeme away from the hall to her chambers, ordered the servants to clear the tables, and commanded his knights to ready their horses immediately. Titchfield lay two days’ march away, across the heathland and down to the coast, and they hastened to begin immediately.

King Evan rode in the vanguard, his normally handsome face contorted with rage. Raiders! Interrupting dinner! They gave their horses free rein, galloping across the marshy plains. Alongside the king rode his nephew, Cador, an orphan whom the king had generously brought up in the keep, raising him to knighthood in just the last year. What a pair they made. King Evan’s raven-dark hair now bore a few strands of silver, giving him a steely affect. Square-jawed and blue-eyed, he sat upright on his horse, hand resting on the pommel of his sword, staring ahead of him as if, despite the miles to go, he could see the raiders already. Cador bounded at his left, riding so fast that his blond hair streamed out behind him (long hair was the fashion then for knights), his ruddy cheeks still soft with youth, his hazel eyes drinking in the world. But this man was anything but soft: he had first blooded his blade against Norway’s raiders, in the battle that won King Evan his beautiful bride, Eufeme. If the king looked to be carved from stone, then Cador was hewn from oak. A perfect pair of men, riding side by side.

The raiders had long since left Titchfield and proceeded up the coast. King Evan surprised them in the midst of marauding the coastal village of Hook and soon his knights had put them to the rout. The battle is not worth telling: the raiders were only a motley crew, half-starved, without much fight in them. The fishermen of those parts were grateful (and no doubt the brave king capitalized on their daughters’ gratitude in particular). They hailed him as he was often hailed: King Evan the brave, King Evan the gallant, King Evan the just. The troop from Winchester stayed long enough to enjoy as much of a feast as the fisherfolk could offer (I suspect they enjoyed other offerings of flesh much more than the fish) and then, in short order, began their long journey of return.

Evan and his knights had stripped off their heavy mail and thick plates of armour, loaded these on the packhorses, which they left in the care of their squires, and now rode lightly, the rich air of late summer carrying scents of ripe grain – what the raiders had hoped to make off with. One squire rode ahead of the king, with Cador once again at his side, carrying a staff with the king’s banner. A golden lion, passant, stood against a field of azure blue. Each gust of wind made the lion writhe, the banner snapping so the blue looked like the waves on the sea, and the lion’s tongue, blood-red, licked the air. The squire who carried the staff puffed out his chest and strained to keep the staff perfectly upright: he was leading the king’s procession.

Evan, for his own part, slumped a little in the saddle, passing bits of gossip with Lord Fendale, who rode to his right. Lord Fendale, old enough to be the king’s father, had grown portly in recent years but he still enjoyed squeezing himself into his old armour and riding out for a good fight, especially one he was likely to win.

‘Ah, that was a merry battle,’ Lord Fendale sighed.

‘Hardly a battle, old friend.’

Lord Fendale laughed. ‘It is true! I have fought greater wars at my own table.’

‘You married off that daughter of yours yet?’ King Evan asked Lord Fendale.

‘Which one?’ the lord lamented with a moan. ‘I have three yet to dispose of.’

With a circling flourish, the king settled a hand on his chest. ‘The one with the large … heart.’

‘Ah. Helena. I was thinking to save her for young Cador.’

At this, Cador blushed. He had a fair complexion, white as milk, as befitted his innocence and purity, in those days. ‘Thank you, m’lord,’ he fumbled.

‘Cador will have his choice of women, I should think,’ King Evan said. ‘Though I would be happy to see him settled with someone not just of ample bosom but of ample land as well.’ He turned to the younger man and asked, ‘You are the third son?’

‘Fourth, Your Highness.’

‘I could never keep track of how many my late brother had,’ the king said. He leaned over to Fendale. ‘Have you any younger brothers? No? Just as well. Mine was in swaddling clothes when I earned my first sword. But he still spawned half a dozen children before I had even one.’ Fendale coughed and hemmed at this. It was well known in Winchester that Evan’s first wife, and now Eufeme, his second, had delivered nothing but stillbirths. ‘No matter,’ the king said, turning back to Cador. ‘You have grown into a fine man at Winchester.’

‘Thanks to your generosity, Your Highness,’ said Cador, offering a little bow in his saddle.

They passed through a small hamlet of rough huts, their thatch grey though the fields around them were golden. Children, most half-naked, ran about, and a dog streaked across the road, making Lord Fendale’s horse shy to the side. Cador reached a hand down and stroked the side of the neck of his own horse, Sleek. ‘Easy,’ he murmured. Some peasants emerged from the huts, shapeless in rough brown tunics; it was impossible for Cador to discern if they were men or women until a couple of them folded over in awkward bows. Cador responded with a scanty nod and King Evan, for his part, ignored them entirely. In a moment, they were past the squalid huts, and the rutted track carried them through fields thick with grain. The king’s mount, a chestnut stallion named Hero, whuffed and shook his head, jangling the bit, as if he knew that some day these stalks of oats might feed him.

Then the fields petered out, and the track narrowed, and the land became boggy. Sparse trees with crooked branches, murky puddles. The track ceased its straight-ahead course and split in an inconvenient Y. The squire reined in his mount and turned in the saddle. ‘Yes, sir?’ he said, expectantly, to the king.

Now most travellers at this junction would hardly hesitate. They would take the road to the right, the north-easterly route. It would extend their journey by many miles, more than a half-day’s travel. Stop a merchant at that crossroads, ask him why he takes the longer route, and he’ll tell you, ‘Oh, there are mountains in that forest. Quite steep.’ And he’ll be a liar. It’s the forest he’s afraid of.

For the left-hand track, which is weedy and overgrown even at its inception, leads straight north, straight into the forest of Gwenelleth. Gwenelleth is rumoured to hold … well, what is it not rumoured to hold? A giant. Several trolls. Malevolent imps of assorted types. Most men would point their mounts to the right; indeed, the squire with the banner (and Lord Fendale) was already edging that way.

But King Evan squinted to the left and shook off the languor and gossip that had marked the last hour of riding. He sat straight in his saddle, his shoulders square, his eyes narrowed to examine the dense tangle of briars and oak trees that shadowed the track ahead. Why should the forest of Gwenelleth intimidate him? He was King Evan, and this was his land.

And just as the Duke of Greenwold, who had been riding in the rear, approached King Evan to suggest turning right (for nearby there was a sweet spring where they might water their horses, while forest water is of course tannic and bitter) a massive buck, well fatted and sporting antlers with at least eight points, crashed through the underbrush and leapt across the path.

Well! That was an invitation no man could resist. They had no swift hounds with them, but that scarcely kept King Evan from signalling to Lord Fendale, who raised his horn and blew, avaunt, avaunt! And off they all sprang to the hunt, ploughing deep into the forest, leaving the laden pack animals and the poor squires behind.

Cador rode with the king, in the vanguard of the knights, pressing their mounts hard. On they plunged, never minding the whip of branches across their faces. The buck’s tail teased them, flashing white as it flipped upwards with every nimble leap, only to disappear a moment later in the thick growth. Whenever they came to the merest opening in the trees, Cador would loose an arrow. Some missed, it is true, but once, twice, three times he landed a shaft in the beast’s hide, and every time the buck would bellow. Cador called for a short spear, for the king had only his lance – most unsuitable for the closeness of the forest – and no reply came. He turned in his saddle, and found that the two of them were alone; they had drawn far ahead of the other knights. Cador paused, but King Evan spurred his chestnut stallion so it leapt and Cador’s mount, Sleek, surged in response, as if it too couldn’t wait to catch the buck, and they were again in pursuit, the forest growing thicker around them.

From far behind them came the sound of Lord Fendale’s horn, no longer the brazen avaunt but now the three-note call for succour. Someone had fallen. Cador wheeled his mount towards the noise, but King Evan hesitated.

‘My lord?’ Cador asked.

‘The buck,’ Evan said, his eyes on the undergrowth where already the buck had disappeared.

‘A knight must heed a request for aid.’ Cador nodded emphatically, his blond hair swinging around his chin.

‘If we must.’ King Evan sighed, still staring into the brush, his dark brows drawn together.

They turned their horses and rode more slowly, no longer the reckless pace of pursuit, for their horses whuffed and snorted with fatigue. They rode a hunt in reverse, following the drops of blood back to where they’d been. Succour! sounded again, more urgent.

When they emerged from the tangle of thorns and vines onto the trodden path, what a sight of gore and desolation they found. Three horses lay on their sides, bellies slit open from throat to tail; and what had been squires, half a dozen of them, lay scattered about: a leg here, an arm there, though plenty of pieces were missing, the forest coated with viscera and blood.

‘My God,’ the king said. The knights’ armour dotted the woods, dented, scratched, and gore-coated. ‘What evil happened here?’ He held the reins firm in his hand, for Hero shied away at the smell of blood. He looked about for a squire to whom he could hand the reins, so that he could get off his frisky mount and examine this scene sombrely, as a king ought. But there were no squires.

Well. There was one. One squire and one donkey.

King Evan swung himself down from Hero’s back. ‘What has happened here?’ He looked about at the savaged bodies, the bloody remains; he scanned the ranks of his soldiers and lords, all of them trembling, a few seeming green. These flowers of knighthood, these hallmarks of courage, made ill by the devastation.

Swallowing back his own bile, Evan lifted his chin to the squire. ‘Well? What happened?’

‘The others went ahead, sire.’ The poor squire trembled as he spoke. ‘I waited behind that rise.’ He pointed back up the track. ‘To, um, relieve, that is, release my bowels. I heard such terrible screeching … I ran to the crest and saw a huge lizard, a massive snake, but with legs. It had a horse in its mouth, and with one flick of its neck it broke the horse’s back and swallowed the carcass, and it had a squire clutched in each claw. I couldn’t watch. I ran. And it was all I could do to grab the donkey’s halter when he, too, fled for safety.’

The knights grumbled and cursed the imagination of foolish boys. But Cador waded through the gore and found claw marks scored deep into the bark of an oak and a shred of scaly flesh. He picked it up with the tip of his sword. Even at arm’s length, he could smell its foetid odour, the decay it embodied. The scales glistened, green and silver. With much trepidation, and a prayer sent up to the Holy Lord, Cador reached out and touched the flesh – it was cool and slippery. The other knights gasped as he returned to their midst and flung the serpent’s scales to the forest floor. ‘The boy tells the truth.’

There were those who wanted to ride right back out of that forest. But King Evan, say what you want of him, has always had a sense of when a score must be settled. And he declared that the blood of their squires and packhorses would be avenged and this serpent destroyed.

They buried the tattered remains of their squires beneath the trees, set the surviving squire to cleaning the gore-splattered armour and built a massive fire around which they sat as the sun sank low.

‘I have studied the piece of flesh and noted the pattern of the scales,’ said the most learned knight among them. He pointed with the tip of his sword at the scrap that Cador had recovered. It glinted malevolently in the firelight. ‘See how they overlap here? The green with the silver? Not at all like your common snake. And not like a dragon. No, my lords, I believe it is a wyvern that we are fighting.’ He paused and around the fire eyes widened and more than one knight tried to swallow in a throat gone dry. ‘They were the few serpents who escaped the Lord God’s curse in Eden, and so they are the snakes who kept their legs. They are more clever than a dragon and hungrier than any snake.’

‘Terrible creatures,’ said Lord Fendale, who was not nearly so learned. ‘Their breath is poisonous.’

‘As is their blood,’ said the Duke of Greenwold, even less learned than the other two. ‘It burns.’ He leaned towards the fire, holding his palms out, for the evening had turned chill.

‘Enough,’ said King Evan, who knew nothing of wyverns, but plenty about how a man can turn cowardly when darkness settles and stories start. He eyed the flames. ‘It is a foul beast and we will rid my kingdom of its filth. Our squires were young and untried. They were no match for the wiles of such a beast. Tomorrow we will show the serpent true knights.’ He glanced around at the men who circled the fire, his blue eyes settling on each in turn, just for a moment, before resting longer on Cador. Still mud-splattered from their chase of the buck, his blond hair tousled by the wind, the young knight seemed to have lost the softness of youth that he had when they set out from Winchester. The firelight picked out the hollows of his cheeks, the angles of his jaw.

At length, he lifted his eyes and met his king’s gaze. ‘Indeed we will, my liege.’

When morning dawned, Lord Fendale and the Duke of Greenwold agreed to search for the wyvern’s lair. Cador begged leave of the king, saying he wanted to offer prayers before the fight. King Evan granted him leave and told him not to ride too far. Cador donned a shirt of light mail over a jacket of boiled leather. He set his short spear in its holder, strapped his shield behind the saddle, and buckled his helm atop his head. This preparation was all the more difficult without a squire, but one cannot be too prepared when a wyvern is lurking. With his sword at his side and Sleek refreshed by a night’s rest in the glade, Cador looked a handsome knight. He rode at a gentle pace until he was some distance from the others and spurred the horse on. For it wasn’t prayer that Cador sought, but yesterday’s buck. All night he’d worried – not about the wyvern, but about the creature who might still be suffering because of his poor aim.

Who says knights are heartless and cruel? (I do. Usually.)

The knight rode through Gwenelleth’s dense tangle, following the trail of dried blood, furious with himself for causing such misery. At last, he came to a grove of oaks. Here, all the brush and briar of the forest disappeared and the ground was swept as clean as the king’s hall. The oaks – more than a dozen – rose in an almost-circle, their branches seeming to touch the sky. And there, in the middle of the grove, lay the buck.

Cador had spent his life hunting and fighting. He’d killed his first man – a thief who had climbed over a manor’s outer wall – at thirteen. He had trembled when the fight was over, but from fatigue, not guilt. It was just and right to kill when one’s person or property was threatened. And he didn’t remember killing his first deer or trapping his first rabbit. These deaths were of little consequence: they were food on the table, death to allow life. But this buck … it lay, panting, in the middle of the clearing. And though he knew he should avenge the death of the squires, who were mere innocents, he couldn’t rid himself of the guilt he felt at how much pain he had caused. To kill cleanly with good reason was right; to cause suffering was base and vile.

As he inched closer to the buck, he could see what a fine specimen it was – the spreading antlers bore eight points. The tawny sides, lighter than usual, were unblemished, with none of the scars and matted burrs that typically marred such animals’ coats. The only flaws: his three arrows. Two sprouted from the buck’s shoulder and one from the buck’s flank.

He dismounted and let the reins fall (his horse, Sleek, was well trained and would not budge). He stepped closer. By rights, he should have drawn his sword. The buck lay defeated, in misery. A quick thrust, there, where the leg joined the torso, into the heart, would end its suffering. Mercy for the beast. And he could ride off to seek vengeance for the squires.

And yet.

With a twinge of relief that no one was around, Cador sank to one knee, crossing his hands on the pommel of his sword, as if making obeisance. He could not say why, could only look at that massive buck, its night-black eyes staring into his, and whisper, ‘Sorry.’ The word was wrenched from him. ‘I’m sorry.’ Other words babbled in his mind – declarations that he’d wished he’d known, how he wouldn’t have shot those arrows if he had – half-nonsense that he knew to be true but didn’t understand. He reached out a hand. ‘I wish I could heal you, but I fear …’

‘Try the water of the spring.’

Cador scrambled to his feet. The voice had come from above. He loosened his sword in its sheath, swivelling his head around. ‘Who said that?’

‘I did. But hurry. The spring.’

There came a rustling of leaves high in one of the oaks. A motion caught his eye, a shifting of branches, while no breeze stirred the other trees. Cador half-drew his sword, spurred by fear and embarrassment (for whoever was in the tree had surely seen him kneel before an animal).

And yet.

The rustling ceased and he heard only the laboured breathing of the buck. A whuff from Sleek. The splashing of water. Unthinking, he dropped his sword into its sheath and ran towards the sound of the spring.

A rivulet of sparkling water plummeted from a rock shelf to land in a pebbly pool. At most springs – at least those near well-travelled paths – a wooden mug or horn cup would hang, suspended from a nearby branch, but there was none such here. Cador took off his helm, filled it to the brim, and carried it to the buck. He knelt and held the helm to the animal, but the buck rolled its eyes back and feebly turned its head away. Puzzled, Cador pushed the helm closer, but the buck refused to drink. So Cador dipped his fingers into it and flicked the water onto the buck’s head, as priests did with holy water.

‘It’ll take more than that, boy,’ the voice said. ‘This isn’t a christening.’

Cador looked around him, hoping for more advice, but none was forthcoming. He was alone; the trees were silent all around him. So, though it seemed undignified, he poured the water over the buck. Waited. Refilled the helm. Poured it again.

Three times in all did he empty his helm over the buck. After the third drenching, the buck raised its head, straining its neck and scrabbling with its hooves. Cador backed away. The buck flailed, found purchase, and stood on quivering legs. It shook itself, as a hound wet from the rain might shake itself, and the arrows fell loose. Where they had been, no scars or wounds remained. The buck gazed levelly at Cador, who felt a liquid squeeze of fear at the accusation there. Compelled, Cador bowed, and the buck dipped its antlers before running into the woods.

Silence, then:

‘Well done! For a moment, I thought you’d try to pour it down his throat. He wouldn’t have liked that. Haw!’

Cador spun about. There, on a low branch of an oak, sat an old man, his legs straddling the limb. His beard, matted and grey, had as much mistletoe tangled in it as the oak tree did. With a leap that belied his age, he vaulted to the ground and strode towards Cador. He had icy blue eyes that sparkled with what might have been amusement; his beard twitched, either with a smile or because some forest creature had taken up habitation within.

He was stark naked.

‘Well done, well done.’

Cador tried not to gape. Now that his interlocutor was revealed to be nothing but a dirty, naked old man, he felt disappointed. ‘Why didn’t you give the buck the water?’ he asked, wrinkling his nose; the old man smelled like a half-rotted carcass.

‘What an astute question from one so handsome.’ The old man offered a mocking bow. ‘That buck wouldn’t have let me come near enough to wet him with a single drop. Haw! He’s old King Keredic of Elmet. And it’s me that cast the curse to turn him into a buck. Haw! Haw!’ He laughed like a crow at the knight’s surprise.

Cador pulled himself up to his full height, so that he could look down on the old man. ‘I don’t understand your nonsense.’

‘I put a curse on King Keredic. I turned him into a buck. Follow me so far?’ His words were slow and mocking. His pale blue eyes glittered and glimmered; they seemed to reflect a light beyond what sun slanted into the clearing. ‘I was, let us say, intimate with his queen. I taught her the ways of wyrd, of glamours, of magic. And then that evil witch used that knowledge against me. Now I’m cursed too – made to live like the beasts of the forest, running about naked, eating only herbage. One day a year the curse lifts and I am able to speak and dress and move normally. It’s to give me a chance to apologize to the queen. But I usually just get a good meal at an inn. Grass is disgusting.’ He scratched his crotch. ‘Come to think of it, that day must be nearing. Even though I’m naked as a fish, I can at least talk to you. Haw!’

Cador’s confusion had only grown. An old man. A wizard. Who’d cursed a king and been cursed himself. Forced to live in the woods. It all seemed familiar to him. He recalled a story told to him as a child. A memory tinged with magic and legend tugged at his mind and stopped his sneering tone along with an instinct for caution. If – if! – this naked old man was actually a wizard, then Cador ought to be overly polite with him. And even if he wasn’t a wizard … well, it is knightly to be kind to the elderly and the … disadvantaged. ‘Is there anything I can do to help you, Sir Wizard?’ he offered in a measured voice.

‘Aren’t you the gallant fool? No. None but a maiden can break the curse. Or the queen, I suppose, and she’s no maiden. Not many maidens come traipsing through the forest of Gwenelleth.’ He sighed. ‘Besides. You’ve helped me enough by bringing that bastard buck back to life. No fun if he escapes my curse by dying.’

And here Cador had intended to help the buck, to put it out of its misery. How had it all gone so strange and wrong? He scratched his nose, trying to recall legends he’d heard of a man in the woods. But all he could summon was a general sense that it was best not to cross paths with wizards and, if you were unfortunate enough to do so, to tread carefully. So he gave the man a nod, as one would offer to an equal, and said, ‘I am glad to have been of service to you.’