Re: A game of heart and art
Okay, here's my contribution for round 2.
this one is a little longer and took me most of the night, but I'm actually quite pleased with how it turned out. Its first attempt at a twisted Neil Gayman style offbeat fairy tale, and it seemed to work fairly well
Btw, as before, not looked at anyone else's posts following Mata's suggestion for the subject of this round in post 35, so if I've stood on any toes with this one, my appologies.
"What exactly is deep beneath that intimidating, hulking appearance?”
1: William.
William was afraid of the troll. Not in the same way he was afraid of James or Daniel, or what his mother would say if he tracked mud onto her newly washed floor, not even the way he was afraid when he saw the thieves bones hanging on the gibbet by the road side, not even the way he was afraid of thunder storms, or of the wolves howling in the winter forest when he was out in the meadow watching merry bell. Trolls were something different, little pieces of the dark beneath the world, well eight foot tall pieces with razor sharp tusks.
Daniel said there was no troll, that it was just some story cooked up to keep the children away from the river, and away from the wild blackberry bushes that grew there, but when William asked Daniel if he’d ever gone down to the old stone bridge and actually looked for the troll, Daniel had just taken a swing at William and told him to shut his gob.
Sarah had told him though, he’d been sitting at her feet by the broad stone hearth as she spun, idly weaving reeds into a basket, banned from the evening’s haymaking for some crime or other. She’d taken time off from her usual recitation of the merits of the local boys to tell him how she and Rebecca had once snuck right down to the bridge’s opening, down the steep and slimy river bank beside the wall of pitted and weather worn stones, down to where the bridge’s dark maw opened wet and black, wreathed in straggling grasses and long creepers.
“did you see him?”
“No, but we heard it, a sort of snuffling, whiffling sound, like a pig snoring, but much deeper and louder.”
“And you really think it was him, not the wind.”
Sarah tossed her head, nearly dislodging her flowered kerchief and sending her dark plat bobbing.
“Why do you say him.”
“well, he’s a troll, trolls are always boys.”
“don’t be stupid.”
Sarah said snippily.
“where would little trolls come from.”
William frowned down at his half completed basket, poking a thumb through one of the larger holes.
“What does that have to do with anything.”
“never you mind.”
Sarah’s face suddenly flushed pink and she sank into an offended silence punctuated only by the click clack of her spinning wheel.
He’d tried asking more questions, but Sarah wouldn’t say anything else, either about the troll, or why having only boy trolls meant there wouldn’t be any more trolls.
Of course, that had been last year, and he’d figured out the answer, or rather had overheard Daniel in the barn discussing the matter in detail with James whilst they watched the antics of the cockerel among the few scrawny hens. He also knew why Sarah had blushed, the whole thing sounded absolutely disgusting to him. He wondered why Daniel and James, and for that matter Rebecca; and even Sarah at times these days, seemed to make so many jokes about it, especially since if his mother or father heard any of them the result was usually a clip round the ear.
But that of course brought him back to merry bell, and the troll, and the reason he was now trudging down the long muddy track passed yellowing early autumn hedgerows towards the squat stone shape of the bridge, the glow of a dawn sun not high enough to warm him peering redly across the hills. Merry bell bent her neck to crop at something by the hedge, her shaggy brown white coat trailing on the ground like the hem of an ill-fitting cloak.
“don’t do that.”
William tugged impatiently on the rope halter, but the goat ignored him, snuffling happily as her jaws worked.
William sighed. Stupid goat. Then again he couldn’t blame her, if he were a nanny goat he certainly wouldn’t want somebody to drag him to the next town to be, ---- now what had his father called it, “covered” that was it, by strange goat he didn’t know.
“covered.”
That was what they called it with goats and horses, Daniel of course had lots of other names for it. The one that disturbed William was “banged.” “Banging” sounded like someone punching something, or hitting with a stick. Wasn’t that what knights were supposed to do with their swords, bang on each other’s armour?
But knights didn’t bang girls with their swords, only other knights, and monsters of course. Maybe it was called “banging” when knights killed girl monsters?
Idly William scanned the ground, looking for a stick he could turn into a convenient sword as he thought about girl monsters. Did the girl trolls hit people with brooms instead of clubs? Or maybe they were the giants, the ones people said ground bones to make their bread, I mean it was his mother and sisters that did the baking wasn’t it, maybe the men giants put people in the mills to grind their bones, and the women giants actually baked the bread.
William was suddenly brought back to reality by a tug on the rope. Merry bell had tired of whatever she’d found on the ground and was straining down the hill, nearly pulling William off his feet. William felt the packed earth of the track slip slightly beneath his sandals before his weight was too much for the errant goat and she obediently stopped tugging, simply standing quietly as William rearranged his grip on the halter to something a little firmer.
“I suppose you’d rather be back in the pasture right Merry?”
\
The goat, recognizing her name swished her thin little tale happily and gambled a few steps, one cloven hoof nearly catching William’s toes.
William sighed again. Six miles to herdergate, then goodness knows how long trying to find someone with a billy goat they’d be willing too, well do that thing with Merry bell for a shilling or less, then six miles back. He’d be lucky to get back before dark.
Dark. As though summoned by the word, the bridge’s stony span spread before him, a long tongue of dun grey stretching across the river, banks with their undergrowth falling down into the bluish dawn shadow on either side. William shivered, but this time it was not because of the meagre warmth of the scarcely risen son, or the thinness of his buckskin jerkin. HE paused at the edge of the track, where brown packed earth changed to dusty grey stone. Was that a sound he heard? A thick, wine sodden snoring rising over the ripple of water and the occasional calls of busy birds. Or was it indeed just the wind, empty and hollow, blowing in the unseen arch beneath the bridge.
That thought had been a mistake. William’s mind instantly leapt into the dark, imagining the cavernous space full of water, the pressing down turn of stone on stone. Maybe that was what those giant mills would be like, huge slabs of rock, mashing and murky.
Merry bell, growing tired at the enforced halt strained at her rope again, skittering forward so that her hooves tapped and scraped at the outermost edge of the bridge. Caught off balance once more, William was jerked forward and pulled stumbling onto the stones. Frantically his right hand shot out and grasped the bridge’s weathered parapet, giving him the second he needed to get his feet back under him.
William cursed, using words he’d heard his father say when one of the plough shafts snapped, but the spell was broken. The dawn air was silent but for wood and wind and water, and now that he was standing on the bridge it seemed silly to be afraid. It was just a bridge after all, something that had been hammered and chiselled and set in place by quite ordinary men, likely paid by the baron of Brookstonshire with quite ordinary coins.
And what would his brothers and sisters say. Well Daniel would say something nasty whatever, but what would Sarah say if he dilly dallied around crossing a bridge because he was afraid of the troll. His father would give him more than a clip round the ear for that, he was sure.
William squared his shoulders, trying to imagine he was a knight, leading some noble charger on some epic quest, and strode forward. The noble charger sniffed disdainfully at the stones beneath her, then skipped ahead, thin tale wagging in a very un-noble way.
William was just about to step off the bridge onto the winding track which meandered up the ridge of hills on the other side of the stream, when the hand fell on his shoulder.
He turned, suddenly afraid, a small thin boy in a ragged jerkin and no colour linen shirt, face stark and stricken beneath an untidy crown of thin gold hair. How it had appeared so silently William didn’t know or even think. It towered over him like a mountain, hunching and clifflike, yet covered in a crop of wiry grey hair like a horse’s main. Two massive tusks protruded a full foot and a half from its face, curving over the massive lumpy jaw like twisted tree routes, though they gleamed with an ivory sharp sheen.
William couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. The troll didn’t move either, it simply stood, looking down at William, its lower jaw open beneath its tusks to show a set of white grinders.
It was then that William found his voice.
“Please don’t eat me sir troll.”
He glanced towards Merry bell, the goat surprisingly was taking absolutely no notice of the troll at all, but bending to lick at one of her hooves. William briefly considered offering her to the troll, then looked at those huge tusks and shuddered.
“I’m just taking my goat to Herdergate, we won’t do any harm. We’re both very thin Sir troll, and I’m sure not nice to eat, and anyway Merry bell, that’s the goat, she’s not been covered yet.”
William cursed himself, his mouth seemed to have a mind of its own.
“I mean, I, --- that is we, we probably taste like cabbage!”
A little part of William’s mind, a calm clear part wondered exactly what had possessed his mouth, but the words simply came tumbling out, as if his mouth had strings which opened and closed it like the mouth of a dragon puppet he’d seen in a show last harvest fair.
, we’re I mean, I, I mean we wouldn’t be much of a meal for you would we, I mean ---please!”
The final please came out in a breathy squeak, and the calm, clear part of William’s mind realised that the strings had stopped opening and shutting his mouth, well they’d stopped shutting it anyway, it seemed to be hanging open.
The troll glanced down at Merry bell, William felt himself quake, wondering if those massive hands were about to reach out, pick up the goat and pop her into the trolls jaws like a ripe blackberry. If that happened he would surely be next.
He glanced again at the trolls tusks and teeth, wondering distractedly if the troll was indeed a boy or a girl.
Then the troll’s hand moved, and William cowered back, his knees nearly buckling. But the troll didn’t reach for the goat, or for William, it simply waved, a hand the size of a side of beef moving in a casual and unmistakable gesture. It inclined its massive head to William and then waved again, the casual wave one traveller might give another as they passed on the highway.
William didn’t need to be told twice, Grasping Merry bell’s halter in both hands he began to run, sandals slipping and sliding, clawing his way off the bridge and up the track as fast as his legs would carry him. Merry bell, obviously happy for the exercise gambling along right beside him, tale swishing and head tossing with incongruous joy.
2: Alice.
Alice was feeling hot, tired and irritable. The idea of defying your parents to run away with your husband to be was all very well in stories, but actually doing it for real was proving far less romantic and dashing than it sounded.
“How are you my love?”
“I’m alright dear.”
Alice said evenly, forcibly reminding herself that this was the man she loved, this was the man she was going to spend her life with, this was the father of the child steadily growing inside her, and no she did not want to murder him.
Jacob’s concern would’ve been easier to take if it had just been Jacob. After all, men didn’t get pregnant, so it made sense they’d need to ask a woman how she was feeling; (even if she wished that Jacob at least would do it less often). What she couldn’t understand though, was the fact that every woman she encountered, from old grandmothers to girls in short skirts, wanted to give her endless advice. Sit near the fire, don’t walk around too much, walk around more, drink plenty of chamomile tea, drink goat’s milk, rub your stomach with bezel, and woe betide her if she said she was hungry, or thirsty, or needed to use the privy.
Of course, apart of that might have been that she hadn’t supposed to be pregnant in the first place, or at least not by Jacob. Her father had taken it relatively well, simply telling her that they’d need to find her a good husband, IE, a husband who was not a travelling minstrel as soon as possible. He’d not even seemed angry, just resigned to a new problem.
Her mother however.
Alice shivered slightly as she remembered the screaming, sobbing fit, the slammed doors, the torn clothes. She’d wondered if her parents would lock her up like some princess in a story, with Jacob having to climb a rope to her window, or drug her father so he could carry her out over his shoulder (a rather dicey prospect given her and Jacob’s relative sizes). As it happened though, Jacob had arrived just at the point her mother had tearfully told her to “go ahead and marry him, live like a tramp, give birth in a ditch, see if she cared.”
That was the real irony of course, that the so called “feckless musician” had had everything worked out, not that Alice’s mother had stopped to listen.
He’d got a cousin in Herdergate where she’d stay until the baby was born whilst he looked for steady work playing in the village’s wayside Inn. That would hold them a couple of years until their child was old enough to travel. After that, well they’d see. Jacob was already teaching her most of his songs and how to play the harp, and everyone agreed her voice was superb, perhaps good enough for a lord’s house.
Alice shifted her weight on the pony, her divided skirts moving restlessly as she felt the saddle biting into her behind.
She’d never been built for pony riding even before becoming pregnant. “Sturdy” or “buxom” had been the kindest things said about her figure,. That was why it was amazing she’d ran into Jacob, the small fine boned bard with his courtly manners and dashing colour patched cloak had seemed distant and unattainable as a creature from another world, at least until he heard her sing.
“only six more miles.”
Alice gritted her teeth. True they’d travelled five miles already that morning, and ten miles the day before, but “only six miles” seemed quite the exaggeration.
At least if it was herdergate they should have lamb there. The taste of lamb rose up in her mouth, fat and greasy and warming, so thick it almost made her choke. That was one part of being pregnant that none of the other women seemed to like to talk about, that and the throwing up each morning. She bit down on the thought, telling her stomach, both the part that held the baby and the part that demanded lamb that they’d just have to wait.
The thought of lamb bought the goat back to mind.
She glanced over and saw the animal wandering along behind Jacob at the end of its rope tether. The minstrel looked mildly uncomfortable with the goat, holding the rope’s end gingerly in one hand as though it might bight him. True, Jacob’s travelling clothes weren’t the fine silk vest and patch coloured cloak he wore when he performed, but the site of the slender minstrel, obviously no farmer leading the black long necked goat was still an odd one.
That had been a strange thing for her father to do. When his squat figured had loomed up at the farm gate she wondered if Jacob, or perhaps even both of them were in for a beating, but he’d thrust the goat’s halter into Jacob’s hand and grunted. “Make sure you take care of her.” Alice hadn’t been sure whether he’d meant her or the goat.
Perhaps they could go back, one day.
Her musings were suddenly interrupted by the gleam of sun on water. Leaning forward across the pony’s neck she saw that the path sloped down to a broad stone bridge set over a flat tinkling stream.
She raised one hand and wiped sweat from her forehead. She’d long since divested herself of her kerchief, and her hair hung in a sticky mass, the colour darker than its usual light brown.
“Jacob could I”
She paused suddenly uncomfortable, she hated asking for things, but as she looked at the slope of the undergrowth covered bank beside the road and considered her own gravid body she knew this was something she just couldn’t do.
“what is it Alice?”
“could you get me a drink please?”
She waved a hand over herself indicating the heavy folds of the dark woollen skirts, the long wrap, so necessary when they’d started out that morning, yet now nothing but hot bulk.
“Of course.”
Jacob tugged on the line, and the goat resentfully followed him over to the side of the road, casting the minstrel a baleful yellow glower. He tied the rope off to the stump of a tree whilst Alice tried to slip herself from the saddle, her body even heavier and more clumsy than usual, flopping like a landed fish, feeling the divided skirts draping and waving and ravelling around her legs.
Then again, thick and graceless though her ankles were, Jacob had already seen them, and nobody else was around so it hardly mattered.
“I’ll be back in a moment my love.”
Taking his leather canteen, Jacob disappeared down the side of the slope, bushes whipping back into place behind him.
Alice stretched, all too aware of the bulge at her stomach and looked down the road to the broad stone bridge, lying grey and placid in the sun. It would be nice to stretch out on a rock like a cat and sun herself, maybe even divest herself of some of these heavy clothes and splash in the water, as she had done not so many years before. She could even ask Jacob to join her?
She smiled, imagining Jacob, water dripping from his bronze hair, his long lean body arched like some elegant statue. That would be nice.
Abruptly she was brought back to reality by the sight of a huge dark figure looming on the bridge. Alice blinked, it hadn’t been there a second ago, and surely she’d have seen it approaching across the river? She wasn’t’ worried, Jacob was within call, and this was hardly bandit country, not so close to Herdergate, with Ashfield two days behind and most of the area between dotted with farms.
It was probably some traveller like them. A pilgrim or peddler or just some farmer heading home for his lunch.
But as the figure approached, Alice’s breath caught. It was tall, far taller than the tallest man, and what she’d originally taken for a grey overcoat was a pelt of bristly hair, covering the figure’s lumpen form from head to toe.
The two hands which hung down to swing close to the creature’s knees were huge and horny as old oak beams, knuckles bulging like bolts, crowned with those protruding bristles. The creature’s face though was what was truly frightening, from the jutting tusks to the half open jaws, as well as the small red eyes beneath craggy brows.
All of this she took in in a second, she opened her mouth to scream, to cry a warning, but then suddenly the thought of Jacob struck her, thin, pale Jacob with his long musician’s hands. This creature would break him like a twig, chew him up and spit out his bones as easily as she might eat a mackerel. If she screamed Jacob would come running of course, and that would be that. But what about her child? A voice inside her head screeched, a voice which demanded she fly at the creature with all the fury she possessed, that she claw and pummel and do anything but let it kill what was inside her.
She took a trembling breath, hands going protectively to her belly, then another, then another. The creature approached, shuffling and simian on massive knobby feet, its shadow seeming to fill the world. Alice took another breath, then found her lungs wouldn’t move, she had simply seized up like a rusty wheel, drowning in terror and the smell of old fir.
Then abruptly she realized the creature had simply walked passed her. She turned, feeling almost offended. So What was wrong with her?
To her surprise though, the beast crossed to the tree where Jacob had tethered the goat. The goat, with typically animal stupidity was still cropping at some ivy leaves, and paying absolutely no attention to the approaching monster.
The creature reached down with one huge hand and lifted the goat, holding it as easily as if it had been a kitten. Alice would’ve expected the goat to struggle, to thrash and bleat and kick with its sharp hooves, but instead the goat lay quiet, still chewing away at its mouth full of ivy.
Large hands gently and firmly turned the goat over onto its back, revealing a row of pinkish teats, then shook its head and set the goat neatly back onto its hooves again. The goat didn’t seem to care, but went happily back to its ivy.
“what, ----- I mean what?”
Alice voice was almost a croak. She took a step forward, but again the monster seemed to be paying no attention to her, it turned its broad bristly back and shambled off down the road. Alice expected to see it cross the bridge, or at least turn aside, but once again, when it reached the stones of the bridge the creature seemed to vanish, though she supposed it must have gone somewhere.
“Alice?”
Another crashing of undergrowth preceded Jacob’s return, canteen held up triumphantly in front of him as though were a bunch of roses.
“sorry I was a while, I was trying to find a place where I could get down to the water. And where it ran clear.”
Alice took the canteen wordlessly, pulling off the top and taking a swig.
“Alice. Are you alright?”
Jacob’s face clouded in concern. Alice took a deep breath, taking another gulp of the cool water, feeling her heartbeat return to normal.
“Yes Jacob, I’m absolutely fine. But Jacob?”
She paused, the idea fresh minted in her mind.
“You can write can’t you?”
Jacob raised his eyebrows.
“Yes I can write, it helps me learn ballads, why.”
“because, one of my brothers can read. And I was wondering, when we get to Herdergate and your cousin, perhaps we could send my father a letter? I don’t think.”
Alice paused, trying to put something into words, something that had crystallised inside her almost without her notice.
“I don’t think he really minds you too much. And I think once they see we’re alright, my mother will come around.”
3: Isaac.
It wasn’t fair. Isaac cast an eye over the three goats he’d not been able to sell, the brown billy with the white patch along its back and the two cream nannies, perfectly serviceable animals, and it wasn’t as if he’d been asking too much for them, Herdergate’s cattle market had been irritatingly crowded. It seemed the world and his brother had come to sell, and for some reason, people had been wandering away with inferior specimens rather than those his father had bred. His lip curled as he remembered one ragamuffin hauling around a scrawny young beast on a rope, a ragamuffin who’d dared to ask stud services from one of his goats. He’d given the impudent urchin a cut across the face with his horsewhip to teach him manners. That was the problem with business these days, every country bumpkin who’d managed to work out the difference between billy and nanny goats had brought their own nags along, which of course meant bad luck for the legitimate breeders. He ruefully weighed the purse on his belt, thinking how displeased his father would be with the result. Of course, his father wouldn’t believe him, he’d assumed Isaac had squandered the prophets on wine women and song, not that there was much of any to be had in a one horse town like Herdergate.
He took a swig from the leather sack slung over his shoulder than grimaced. What on earth was this stuff. Not a decent southern wine that was for sure. True, Thomas and Timothy had got through enough of it, then again the two guards would happily drink horse piss, that was of course why he was the merchant and they his guards.
He glanced over at where the two leather clad man sat watching their three bleating charges, looking red eyed and sullen even at this late afternoon hour. They’d probably burn tonight’s stew again. Thomas wasn’t a bad camp cook, at least when he was sober, that however was the problem.
A sudden idea struck Isaac and he turned to where the girl sat in the shadow of his standing horse, her legs drawn up under the cloak he’d given her, though more for the sake of warmth than modesty he guessed. Rachel, that was her name he remembered.
“can you cook Rachel?”
She looked up at him worriedly.
“I can, ---- well, sort of.”
Just his luck Isaac thought.
“What were you doing in that inn if you didn’t’ cook.”
The girl shrugged, a shrug which Isaac noticed artfully moved the cloak off her shoulder to show him how loosely the bodice of her dress was laced.
“I waited tables mostly. That’s why I want to go to the big city.”
“but can you cook.”
The girl cast him a slightly resentful look.
“If I was your lady, I didn’t’ think I’d have to cook.”
Isaac suddenly found himself looking at the girl as though through a pane of darkened glass. Last night she’d been alluring, vivacious, giggling and pretty, all chestnut curls, sparkling brown eyes and soft inviting curves. Even waking beside her this morning it hadn’t been too bad, she’d at least provided a pleasant distraction before breakfast and that made this hole trip feel slightly less of a failure. But now, seeing her in the cold light of the afternoon everything had changed. Those exciting girlish curls now appeared straggled and worn, the skin that had gleamed like silken rose was already showing odd lines and spots, , and the curves, those so soft and welcoming feminine curves now seemed slumped and sagging like a lumpy mattress.
The girl looked shocked when he slapped her. True, he’d slapped her before, when she’d woken him that morning before his hang over wore off, but she’d obviously forgotten that occasion, or maybe just put it down to early morning resentment.
He saw the shock gather in her eyes and tensed, wondering if she’d fly at him nails out, or run back up the road in high dudgeon, but instead she simply ducked her head and bit her lip, the red mark on her cheek glowing in the afternoon light.
Isaac turned his back on her. It didn’t matter, either she’d continue with them all the way to Ashfield or she wouldn’t. It wasn’t’ as if she was a good lay anyway. It was always the same with these country girls. True, they were easy enough to have, a few words about the city, a flash of gold or smile, a tale or two of other places and they’d come quite willingly to his bed, but in the bed itself, absolutely no skill whatsoever. Now the city brothels, there were women who knew their job. True, they were more expensive, but that just proved women were like anything else, you got what you paid for.
Isaac kicked his way passed a couple of the goats and began putting the saddle back on his horse. They could still get a step more of the journey done today, and then he’d see if the girl could indeed cook or not. The look of shock in Rachel’s eyes, a look he’d seen several times before suddenly struck him, and Isaac shifted uncomfortably. Something in that look had reminded him his sister, of the day she’d fallen from her favourite horse, something uncomprehending and betrayed.
Well she shouldn’t have annoyed him should he. After all, he was the one doing her a favour, she wanted to go to the big city and he was taking her, it wasn’t as if he’d forced her was it?
As before, a sudden pane of glass fell before his vision and he saw himself, not as he imagined himself dark haired, olive skinned and dashing, body lean with a rider’s muscles, but huge and hulking, a bandit, a ruffian.
He shook his head and swung quickly into the saddle, calling to Thomas and Timothy to move. The two burley guardsmen slumped to their feet, cursing the three goats into line as they grasped their rope halters. Thomas gave the girl a dully lustful glance and again Isaac felt that odd hitch of unease, now those were really bad men, albeit bad men in his employ.
The girl ran over and tugged at one of Isaac’s stirrups, jerking his foot unpleasantly. She’d begun that morning riding in his lap, the feel of her firm behind nestled against him a pleasing distraction on the journey. She’d walked for the last few miles though, stumbling along in her feathered slippers, the hem of her patterned skirt growing dusty with road dust, making a total mess of the fine cloak he’d lent her.
Isaac jerked his foot out of the way ad gestured peremptorily ahead of him, indicating the girl should start walking. She cast him another sullen look, not unlike one of the goats he thought, eyes flat and teeth showing in something that was almost a snarl, then began trudging in front of his horse.
The path sloped out of the hills here, down in a long series of zigzag turns to a stream crossed by an old bridge. The other side of the stream looked less open, hedges rising to either side of the road, and little copses of trees casting occasional shade. Far better to cross the bridge before tonight Isaac thought, the other side looked like good camp ground, dry with a plentiful supply of firewood and trees for shelter.
Isaac took another swig from the sack of spirits at his waste, then spat the stuff out beside the road. No wonder the girl wasn’t looking her best if she’d been drinking this stuff. What was it made from, distilled rats?
Now When they reached Ashfield he had some real wine, a true southern white, cool and sharp and crisp as summer apples. Maybe he’d even offer Rachel a glass. He was so lost in thoughts of smoked fish and fine white wine, he never saw the figure on the bridge until they were nearly on top of it.
One second his horses hooves were banging familiarly on sun warmed stone, the next it was there, looming up like a grey mountain, its head overtopping Isaac’s even though he was seated on his horse. Time seemed to stop, the background of Rachel’s piercing scream seeming to echo and echo as Isaac saw every detail of the massive shape, sharp curled tusks, huge grinding teeth in open jaws, murky red eyes and hands like knuckles of flint. Then he was jabbing a finger forward, screaming himself, his voice a hoarse quavering bellow.
“kill it! Kill it! Kill it!”
Everything happened very slowly and very fast at the same time. He was aware of tugging on his horses reigns, frantically trying to get the creature to turn. Then he was aware of the two guards running past him, their huge leather clad forms looking tiny beside the troll. Isaac saw their swords rise up against the sky then slash down, striking the troll’s body, but having no more effect than if they’d been turned on the grey stone of the bridge. The troll’s hands barely seemed to move, then suddenly the two men were backing off, letting out identical cries of pain, swords falling from nerveless fingers, each clutching his right hand in his left, right hands that flopped broken and useless like snapped broom sticks.
Isaac tugged at the horse’s reigns, trying desperately to turn the creature, but the horse didn’t want to turn, it was moving too slowly, and the beast was advancing, continuing its steady shamble over the bridge towards him, hands swinging casual and lose.
Abandoning all efforts with his recalcitrant horse, Isaac reached down and seized a fist full of Rachel’s curls, , her scream suddenly cut short with a gasp of in drawn breath.
“hear!”
He thrust the girl towards the approaching troll, she stumbled, nearly falling as one foot came short of its slipper, catching on the hem of her cloak.
“You want to eat someone, eat her!”
Then the troll was suddenly too close and Isaac abruptly found himself sprawling, half on the bridge, half on the dusty earth of the track, his ear and the side of his face dull and frozen with pain. It was only as he reached a hand to the parapet beside him, the unsteadiness in his knees, the cottony stuffed feeling in his head that he realized the troll had hit him. He pulled himself to a half standing position, glancing from where the two guards still lay moaning on the bridge’s stone, to where the troll stood just beyond his stationary horse.
It had indeed picked up Rachel he saw, holding her in one hand. She’d stopped screaming and had seemingly gone quiet, her body limp, her face slack and vacant. But instead of raising her to its massive tusks, the troll simply patted her gently on the back, looking like the most grotesque little girl in the world holding a doll.
Rachel took a breath and Isaac saw animation return to her face, a look of mingled confusion and a strange kind of hope.
Then the troll was setting her down again, placing her feet so gently on the bridge’s stones her skirts and cloak barely rustled. One huge bristled hand grasped her shoulder and turned her to face back the way they’d come. The troll patted her on the back again, this time not a child with a doll, but a shepherd prodding a lamb through a gate. One massive arm rose and a finger pointed, back up the track, back into the hills, back towards Herdergate. Rachel didn’t’ need telling twice. Catching up her skirt and cloak she began to gather speed, the other slipper leaving her foot as she ran, curls bobbing behind her.
The troll didn’t watch her go but turned, And Isaac felt his fear rise inside him like a cold tide.
“Look. Alright, so she wasn’t to your taste. But perhaps you’d care for a goat.”
His voice was shaking and wavering, a pale ghost of his usual confident merchant’s banter.
“or maybe one of these?”
He gestured towards the two groaning figures, then had to grasp the parapet again for support as the gesture threatened to send him tumbling.
The creature turned, and Isaac couldn’t mistake the look in those solemn red eyes, a look flat and cold as a frozen lake. It began lumbering towards him, huge horny feet soundless on the bridge’s stones, coming like a bolder rolling down a mountainside, step by long slow step. Fear gripped Isaac’s chest in a vice, gripped and squeezed and tightened until he could almost feel his ribs crack. He tried to gather his feet, tried to stand and run, but the creature was already too close, those long arms giving it a frighteningly deceptive reach.
He saw the troll’s hand move this time, saw the great knobby knuckles with their spiky coating of hairs, saw the flat dull look in those little red eyes, then saw nothing more.
The first thing Isaac was aware of was the sick taste in his mouth. He moved slowly, expecting to feel the heavy softness of sheets against his skin, or perhaps the boards of an ins floor. Maybe even the pleasant rustle of hay if he’d taken a farm girl off to a barn for a night’s entertainment, but instead there was nothing but cold stone.
He opened his eyes and wished he hadn’t, the sun was glaring directly into them, a sun falling down the sky towards the horizon.
Groaning, he tried to sit up, but only succeeded in rolling over far enough to vomit all over the cold stone. That forced him to sit up, the last thing he wanted to do was lie in his own sick. Placing hands on the stone in front of him he hefted himself to his feet, swaying and reeling like a willow tree in a gale.
A willow tree? He suddenly realised he could hear the sound of running water, that was why he was thinking of willows. At that point it all came back, Rachel, the guards, the troll.
Gingerly he reached one hand up and massaged his head. His ear and the side of his face was tender and swollen, there was another tender place just above his temple, presumably where the troll’s second blow, the one which had knocked him out had landed.
Well at least his skull didn’t appear to be broken. Odd that, you’d think a troll capable of snapping men’s wrists would be stronger. Still, he’d never questioned his luck and didn’t want to start now.
Turning he surveyed the bridge and the road behind. There was no sign of Rachel, just two feathered slippers lying discarded in the dust, one on the stone of the bridge, the other a little further up the track. Annoying that, he obviously wouldn’t be getting laid that night, then again with his head in this state he probably wasn’t in the mood anyway.
The two guards were sitting with their backs against a tree stump, each cradling a cloth wrapped wrist, while his horse was peacefully cropping grass from beside the road along with the two Nany goats, reigns and halters trailing.
There was no sign of the billy anywhere, but what did one goat matter. True, it would just increase the amount of hell he’d get from his father when he got back to Ashfield, but on balance, escaping an encounter with a troll with no more loss than a goat was hardly a bad deal. He could even retell the story, with himself shown in a slightly more heroic light of course, perhaps tales of trolls would be better than tales of big cities for getting some girl to spread her legs.
4: William.
Merry bell looked the way William felt. Her neck drooped, her hooves scraped resentfully along the track, her breath came in taught little gasps. William didn’t’ know if this had anything to do with her not being “covered” that day, or whether she was just as tired as he was. He slipped a hand into his pocket and jingled the coins. He’d spent a penny on a small buttered loaf for lunch, but didn’t dare spend anymore, even though the smell of hot soup and roast nuts had been an ever increasing torment as the day continued. Yet, the smell of the hot food had probably been the nicest thing about Herdergate. The village was busy with the cattle market, herders and merchants yelling, people pushing and haggling in loud voices, dust rising in the hot noon air and making him cough.
He’d sincerely tried his best, he’d approached several people, but after the well dressed young man in the red doublet had horse whipped him across the cheek, he’d been too afraid to go and ask anyone else. Mostly he’d just stood and watched, Merry bell tugging and yawing at the end of her rope, obviously excited by the noise and smells and likely seeing so many other goats in one place.
The cut on his face gave one particularly painful throb and William raised a hand to rub at it, then returned the hand to his pocket for warmth. Despite how hot and dusty Herdergate had been some hours before, now the sun was going down the chill wind had returned. William thought longingly of the hot pottage his mother was probably even now dishing out, perhaps with a warm chunk of bread from the oven by the fire. He glanced up at the sun again. It was getting dark, the sun’s edge well below the horizon, the eastern sky already darkening towards night. He imagined the fire, imagined stretching his aching feet across the hearth rug listening to soothing clack of Sarah’s spinning, but there was still a fair ways to go before he reached home.
he glanced up and down the road, feeling very small, and tired and alone. He’d not seen anyone, not since the woman had passed him an hour or so before. She’d been perhaps a year or two older than Sarah. She’d looked strangely scared, all bare dusty feet and disordered curls, her face bruised and pale. William supposed that if he was a real knight he’d have asked her what was wrong, knights were supposed to help damsels in destress after all. But he wasn’t a knight, aching feet and chapped fingers on Merry bell’s halter told him as much. Besides, there had been something too real about the girl’s fear, something private and shocking that made it almost rude to think about.
He didn’t’ even remember the bridge until his feet touched the stones. Had it been an ordinary day, the sight of the troll would’ve filled him, a presence of shock and wonder in equal measure, but today had been so full of dust and heat and noise, the stinging of the cut on his cheek and the empty feel in his belly, so profoundly and boringly real that even the massive presence of the troll receded like the storm front of a dream.
Suddenly though it was there, the bridge stretching out ahead of him into the dimming evening air and the shock of that dawn encounter crashed in on him like a falling house. William felt his heart start to hammer, his legs recovering their weakness. He glanced nervously along the bridge’s length, but there was no troll, no huge grey figure waiting in the gloom, just a solid span of stone crossing the stream to the darkly hulking shape of the trees on the other side. William felt himself relax, his heart stopping its racing. Maybe the troll had just been something he dreamed up, just another one of his fancies, the things that danced and skittered around his head when he was out in the pasture with merry bell, or weaving baskets, or mucking out his father’s horse, or doing any one or other of the endless round of dull, time eating tasks which seemed to take up so much of his life.
His mind sank back into its exhausted torpor as he trudged over the bridge, head down, hair falling in his eyes, hauling Merry bell impatiently behind him.
As before, he only realized the troll was there when the hands descended onto his shoulders, huge hands as large as his head, their stiff bristles poking and scratching through the thin linen of his shirt, yet their grip surprisingly gentle.
William looked up, and up and up. There it was in front of him, the massive hulking figure of the troll, mouth half open, tiny red eyes gazing down at him from above sharp tusks.
Even William’s fear felt tired, a low grade dull ache like splintered ice that spread through his body, making each limb feel heavy and strange as though it belonged to another person, his head began to pound, full of the sound of voices and the smell of dusty goat hair. He wasn’t aware he was crying until the tears splashed onto his chin, the hitching, racking breathless sobs of any child forced over the brink of exhaustion.
He could never afterwards remember what happened clearly, all there was ,was a set of images, like disconnected snatches of song. He remembered being picked up, his head cradled against a chest like a wall of bristles. He remembered seeing merry bell, just as tired as he was, held just as gently under another massive arm, lying peaceful as a sleeping puppy.
He remembered a vast cavernous space, a space lit by a strange blue light that wasn’t’ stars or torches or anything he’d seen before, a light that slowly faded and moved and broke out again, but always stayed the same.
There was a fire, a fire that seemed to burn with no logs, a fire with a pile of thick woollen blankets placed in front of it as wide as the bed he and his brothers slept in at home.
There was a wooden pen in which several goats moved, cropping happily at grass as green and lush as new spring, grass that apparently grew in the blue light without need of sun or rain.
There was a large brown billy goat tossing its horned head, a billy who looked as if it climbed on merry bell’s back, with a lot of bleating and quivering flexing of necks.
There was a thick earthenware cup of fresh sweet goat’s milk pushed into his hands, and a loaf of warm, dark bread; apparently free of bones, taken from a stone by the fire, thickly spread with rich bighting cheese. That was odd he remembered thinking, apparently the same troll baked and looked after the goats, so was it a boy or a girl.
Then there was sleep, warm and dark and satisfying as the bread had been, wrapped thickly in the huge pile of blankets before the fire.
William’s father found him the next morning, curled asleep in a heap of bracken beneath a massive woollen blanket beside the road, scarcely five minutes’ away. His mother had been nearly frantic when William didn’t return at sunset, after all, though the roads were safe between herdergate and Ashfield, who knew what sort of mischief a boy and a goat might get up to in the village, especially a boy with a shilling in his pocket and tendency to daydream. But he’d turned up safe and sound after all.
It was odd, William’s father believed him when his son said he’d not found anyone to cover the goat in Herdergate, after all only a penny was missing from the shilling William had taken with him, and a penny certainly wouldn’t cover stud fees even for a goat. But the goat had been covered, that was undeniable, a quick examination of her udders told them as much. Then there was the matter of the blanket, a good one, woven of thick goats wool and large enough to cover a whole family. William was strangely quiet on the subject, only saying that someone had been kind.
Eventually, William’s father decided that some friendly tinker or perhaps travelling merchant had taken pity on the boy and left it at that.
William never told anyone the story, not even when the new Herdergate minstrel and his wife had stopped off at their farm for a night’s hospitality and sung a song about a troll living under a bridge, a song the minstrel’s wife had apparently written herself.
Then again the song was probably just a play song intended for her new born son and nothing more, it was after all apparently quite a long journey from herdergate to the place where the woman’s parents lived, and William knew better than most people how important it was to have a story or a song or a tale to keep in your mind when you were doing something boring.
William did sometimes wonder what had happened to the girl he’d passed on the road, the one with the bruised face and bare feet, but when he’d described her to Sarah, Sarah had just told him some girls, especially girls who worked in inns, would always get themselves into trouble one way or another.
That seemed odd to William, after all the minstrel’s wife worked in an inn and didn’t seem to be in any trouble.
Far more interesting was the story the minstrel told of how some rich merchant’s son in Ashfield had suddenly taken the King’s penny and joined the army, not buying the commission of an officer as people would expect, but apparently enlisting as a regular soldier.
The boy had been a bad lot by all accounts, some people wondered if he’d “got the wrong girl in trouble.” William supposed this was probably the same “trouble” girls in inns got up to, but why getting a girl in trouble would mean suddenly had to run off to fight in the war he couldn’t imagine.
Some people said the merchant’s son had run mad, drawing up plans for bridges and apparently trying to buy huge quantities of gun powder, something his father had firmly stepped on.
Either way, maybe a mad man would be good in the army William supposed, like one of those northern warriors turned into bears, ---- or maybe they just fought like bears, bear seekers or whatever people called then.
William didn’t cross the bridge again until midwinter, when the creepers and grasses blanketing the bridge had faded to a lattice of crackling sticks and the trees and hedgerows beside the road were rhymed with frost. The hole family had bumped along in father’s farm wagon, blowing excitedly on gloved hands and chattering like robins at the thought of Herdergate’s winter fair. James and Daniel had run ahead of the wagon, pelting each other with snowballs. William however had sat still beside Sarah on the wagon bed, his _expression_ thoughtful.
“Penny for your thoughts”
Sarah had Asked, but William simply smiled,. He’d been very quiet lately.
When the wagon bumped its way down the track and onto the stones of the bridge, William had glanced from side to side as though searching for something, but either he’d seen what he was looking for, or its absence didn’t trouble him, he’d simply snuggled down into his coat and asked Sarah what she’d wanted as a midwinter present.
They’d enjoyed the fair, though in all bustle and noise of musicians and traders and spices, William had seemed to go missing and nobody was sure where he’d gone. He’d returned in good time though, and had obviously done well out of the fair. Around his neck was a long scarf of a brilliant green the colour of new spring made of the finest woven wool Sarah had ever seen.
That mid-Winter he’d given her a simply gorgeous comb for her hair, made of a smooth brown material and exquisitely carved into the shape of a butterfly. She’d asked him where he’d got it. He shrugged.
“I got it when we went to herdergate fair.”
She ran a finger lovingly across the surface.
“what is it made of. It feels almost like bone.
“It’s Goat’s horn.”
She glanced down at the broach. Horn? Who could carve horn like that.
“I don’t remember seeing anyone selling horn ornaments at the fair.”
“no.”
William replied, tugging the ends of his knew green scarf. Sarah frowned. William was a nice boy, definitely her favourite brother, but there was something seriously odd about him lately. Still, a little oddness never hurt anyone. More important than that, William was kind, and in the end that was what truly mattered.-
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