The Story of Silence

Preface

In 1911, in Wollaton Hall in Nottingham, in a crate marked Old papers – no value, rested a manuscript. The manuscript, likely copied for Lady Beatrice de Gavre on the occasion of her marriage in 1286, contains eighteen stories. One of these was Silence – a previously undiscovered poem over seven hundred years old.

Written in Old French, a mixture of Francien and Picard, the poem is an unusual one. It tells the story of a girl raised as a boy – a motif somewhat familiar from the tales of warrior maidens and women musicians that circulated in the same time period. But it also contains completely novel elements, such as spirited debates between personified figures of Nature and Nurture, who argue over Silence’s true self.

In places, this 13th-century poem treats gender in a way that seems post-modern. The purported author, one Heldris of Cornwall (otherwise unknown), puns with the gendered endings of words and deliberately undermines the ‘reliability’ of language to reveal gender. To give one example, from Sarah Roche-Mahdi’s excellent translation:

‘He [Silence] was so used to men’s usage

and had so rejected women’s ways

that little was lacking for him to be a man

Whatever one could see was certainly male!’

This is a writer who understands that a major aspect of gender is what’s visible in public life (what we would now call gender expression). The ‘little that is lacking’ (that is, genitalia) doesn’t matter at all when it comes to lived experience and others’ perceptions.

When I read these lines, and others like them, I knew I had found a text that I had to explore more fully. What follows, is an expansion, a reimagining, a riff, on Silence. The major plot points are the same, many of the characters are as well. I wanted to be true to the struggle between Nature and Nurture, but represent it more organically. I wanted to keep the troubled (and troubling) depiction of (most) women being evil and inferior, while (noble) men are greedy and glorious. I added a bit more of Merlin because – well, because it’s Merlin. I added more to the story of Silence’s time with the minstrels and his time outside of England, which the original hurries through. And I changed the telling of Silence’s re-entry to England in order to further explore how this bittersweet homecoming feels to Silence and also to simplify some of the interactions between him and Queen Eufeme, which are quite drawn out and convoluted in the original. But on the whole, the changes I made were in the service of writing a tale full of fantasy and narrative tension; I tried to be faithful to my reading of the original in spirit even when I was not faithful in precise detail.

For those who are curious and want further reading, I highly recommend Sarah Roche-Mahdi’s English translation of the original; this volume will point you to other wonderful scholarship in the field as well.

PROLOGUE

On the far side of the inn, the flames guttered in the hearth, dancing in answer to some gust outside. Shadows gathered and fled across the floor, leaping as quickly as my fingers did along the strings of my harp. A cry went up from the crowd standing near the fire, answered by laughter, and into this cacophony I sent my voice, baritone, still pleasant, though it had seen better days. ‘There stands upon a plain … a great circle of stone. The Giant’s Ring.’ Oh, this story. I had always loved it. The tale of Merlin, that great wizard, moving the stone circle from Mount Killaraus to Salisbury. One day, I would see those stones, feel them beneath my fingers.

But for now, I was in the corner, the one furthest from the fire, while two of the locals vied at arm-wrestling. Others surrounded them, lifting tankards and sloshing ale and calling out in the growly accent of Cornwall. The fishmonger’s jerkin bore stains of guts and slime, letting off a rotten stink as he leaned in close to my ear. ‘Play My Lord’s Gone A-Hunting,’ he slurred. ‘No one wants to listen to this dung.’ I almost warned the man that he’d risk a curse from Merlin himself if he didn’t mind his tongue, but he’d already lurched back to the wrestling, and a cheer went up as someone’s arm was pinned, drowning out my perfect recounting of how the wizard had lifted the massive stones from the top of Mount Killaraus and …

From the door to the kitchen, Isolde caught my eye. She stood there, wooden spoon in one hand. (Don’t be fooled – she hasn’t stirred a pot in years. That spoon has other uses.) With her empty hand, she made a hook of her first finger and held it near her ear: our signal. She had sensed something in the room and so I put down my harp and took up my lute and began ‘Maeve’s Friendly Thighs’. Merlin could wait for another night.

The men roared as they heard the song and the attention shifted from the two wrestlers (who had pushed back their stools to square off – how did Isolde know?) to me, and I was forced to stamp my feet and wiggle my eyebrows and insinuate all manner of stupidity, and just as I was silently bemoaning what exactly had landed me – me! – here at the end of the world, the door of the inn broke open.

A rush of damp air swept across me. But instead of the briny sea, it carried the scent of fresh-turned fields, the sweetness of new grass.

A tall figure wrapped in a simple brown cloak strode through then pulled the door shut, and Mary, the serving-girl, stepped forward. As she took the cloak, firelight picked up hints of gold in hair the colour of winnowed wheat, gold also glinting in eyes grey as a stormy ocean. For an instant, the fire seemed to swell, the flames fanning to a rich gold, making the whole inn glow. One of the wrestlers, who a moment ago had reached out to grab his opponent’s shirt, now clapped him gruffly on the shoulder.

And myself? My lute seemed to play on its own, a little ripple of notes that made me laugh as I sang, ‘And Maeve did coo …’, the words coming out by rote despite all my attention being focused on this … figure. I could not yet tell if this was man or woman who had just entered. The side-slit doublet and leggings suggested man, but there were curves beneath the fabric, or a certain slenderness, like a boy on the verge of manhood. So, not a man. Well, probably not.

I tried not to stare at it, but stared nonetheless.

The men around me settled at their tables, taking up the chorus. Isolde ushered the new arrival to a stool near the fire and sat down next to the person, whoever and whatever it may be. I played through song after song, until my voice grew hoarse, and then I plucked a wordless melody, listening as two men with straw in their hair talked of sheep, and three men with silver buttons on their coats talked of the king. ‘They say he’s going to sail against Norway … stop the raids up north.’

‘Raids? He doesn’t care about those. He’s after more land, or more gold.’

‘Maybe if he takes theirs, he’ll leave us alone.’

‘I’ll pay my share, if he keeps our shores quiet …’

I listened, but only just. My eyes, my ears, my every sense was keyed to the person by the fire. Broad, high cheekbones, eyebrows – the dark umber of ale – two perfect arches above those grey-ocean eyes. Oh, beauty. A man could write songs about such a face. What was it? I had to know, for it felt wrong, even in my own mind, designating, as it does, plants and low things, while this being stood and sat and nodded and spoke with shoulders back, head up, moving with dignity but not arrogance. With presence. So, not it. They.

Their skin was chapped red from wind and weather, flushed, too, from the warmth of the fire. It made them look hearty and hale, as rugged as a druid’s oak. And though there wasn’t a whisker about them, let alone a long white beard, there was something of the druid about them, a wise look. They were pensive as Isolde spoke, nodding and now and then reaching down to scratch the ears of the inn’s cat, which twined around their ankles. (Wretched animal! Just that morning it bit my finger when I had tried to pet it.)

From the keep, the bell rang for Compline and several men stood, gathered cloaks, and bundled out into the night. Compline. Another day gone. I ought to be on my way in the morning; it wouldn’t do to stay put for long. Mary brought me a pitcher of wine, and Isolde gave me a stiff nod: I was done for the night.

I set the harp aside, poured myself a mug and tried to study the person by the fire while appearing to be deep in thought. It didn’t work. They stood and said, ‘I won’t keep you from sleep, good sir.’ And, oh, their voice. Husky, unbroken. Pure.

‘Stay,’ I said, raising my tankard. ‘I’ve wine to drink and maybe you’ve a story to tell.’

They considered their mug. They considered the flames licking the logs. ‘I’ve a story or two in me.’

I crossed the room and we settled at a table. I caught again a whiff of that smell – as if I had plunged my hands into the soil of a just-ploughed furrow, felt the blood-warm earth.

‘You play well,’ they said. ‘Why aren’t you singing at some duke’s court?’

‘Indeed, I played at Count Perville’s for some seasons, when I was a stripling. Played at Earl Norchester’s as well.’ Their eyes lit up at that name, and I added, ‘Years ago, mind,’ before they could ask a question I didn’t wish to answer. ‘But Life at court is for young men – wooing and flirting and gossip. I’m here for but a day or two. Good Mistress Isolde has given me hearthspace.’

‘Isolde is indeed a good woman,’ they said. I couldn’t look into their eyes for long; they were not just the grey of the ocean, but seemed to embody the roll of the swells, commanding and compelling. ‘And good people are few to be found, and so, when found, to be treasured.’ They made a little bow on their stool – a gesture that would have been awkward from anyone else, but was courtly and smooth from them. ‘I am Silence. Of Cornwall.’

I smiled. ‘And I am Heldris. And at this moment, I suppose I am of Cornwall as well. And what do we have but this moment? Do you dwell in the village or in the keep?’

‘Neither. And both.’ They stretched their legs with a sigh. They were nice legs, with the roundness of calf that comes from hours in the saddle.

The fire popped. We sipped at our mugs.

‘Silence,’ I said. ‘A most unusual name, I’d venture. How did your parents happen to select it?’

‘Have you more to drink? The story might take a while to unfold.’

‘I will appeal to Isolde.’

They chuckled. ‘It will be a good measure of you, minstrel, to see what she accords as your due. Isolde is wise and a good judge of character.’

I rose, reluctant to go, certain that, like some visitor from the land of Fey, if I turned my back, they would disappear. But wine loosens the tongue. I ducked into the warm lair of the kitchen, getting a jug and a hissed warning from Isolde: ‘Mind your manners with that one or I’ll dent your head with my ladle.’ She would, too. I returned to the fireside and poured wine. When they reached for the mug, I saw nicks and cuts on their hands, white welts of scars on rough skin – what a man gets from working in fields or forests or shops. And there on the thumb, and there, on the finger pads: yellow-waxy callouses I recognized as even more familiar.

‘Do you play?’ I tipped my head towards my harp, wrapped and leaning against the wall.

The hands disappeared beneath the table, as if they’d shown too much, and the stranger said only, ‘Another life.’

‘Tell me about that life.’

‘It starts,’ they hunched forward, staring into the leaping flames, ‘with twin girls …’

‘Ah!’ I could barely contain myself – twins are always deformed or twisted, either on the outside or on the inside, or one is perfect and beautiful and the other an ugly wretch. Or one is saintly and delightful and the other evil and malevolent.

‘… daughters of some earl, I forget who. This was years before I was born. You know the type. Rich lands, beautiful girls. The twins married off at first bloom. To two earls. Also of the usual sort.’ They spoke in a hitching, hesitant way.

Dear listener, what follows is the story as I recall it. Or as I recount it. Or, perhaps, as I have shaped it. For stories bear the imprint of all who tell them. Silence told it to me in that little inn, and I have told it to myself many times since then. And now, listener, I share it with you. I share it in the spirit of truth, knowing that you, in turn, will make it your own.

CHAPTER ONE

Once there were twin girls, born – perfect and beautiful – to Earl Le Valle. Their mother died when they were but infants, and their father raised them to be pleasant, mild, and diligent alike. He doted on them. Even the household staff could seldom tell them apart, they were so equally flawless and winsome. As they grew, they ripened, like grapes on the vine, swelling just right, softening just so, sweetening to perfection. And at the height of that perfection, two dashing earls – we’ll call them Rodney and Jacques – married the twins in great joy at their father’s court.

No expense was spared for the wedding festivities. The earl hired a dozen minstrels (minstrels are the most important part of any wedding), a dozen jugglers, and a troupe of mummers. Hunters flushed a hundred deer from the earl’s woods and so the kitchen-yard was filled with a hundred spit-boys roasting the meat to perfection. Feathers flew as geese and capons were plucked. The priest even had the altar boys polish the church bell. In short, everything was done to perfect excess and the twins were married and their husbands took them to their separate manors.

Not long after, the twins’ father died, and the two husbands laid claim to the earl’s estate – each saying his wife was the older twin. The girls themselves, of course, had no memory of their birth, and their father had insisted on raising them as equals, never disclosing their order of birth. Retainers were questioned, their old nursemaid was dragged from retirement, but no one could say for sure. The old earl had been so fair-minded – so naïve – that he had never recorded which girl emerged first. Rather, that silly fool had told them they came out side by side, holding hands (poor mother!).

The husbands fumed, stormed, and consulted their counsellors but there was no resolution at all. They appealed directly to King Evan, known across England for his sense of justice and his utter faith in the law. (Now, of course, as king he makes the law, which makes his faith in the law rather, well, self-serving, but let us never mind that. A king ought to be praised, if a minstrel wants to make a living.) King Evan considered the matter carefully and discussed it with his advisers, who examined every letter of the law. But even they could make no resolution of the quandary, apart from to suggest evenly splitting the land and holdings. Neither husband would agree to this – half a holding! When it could all be his? And so in the end the earls agreed to a bout of single combat to settle the matter.

They met on the king’s pitch: that long stretch of packed earth, its tufts of grass nurtured by the noble blood that has been spilled there. That hard and level plain beneath Winchester’s walls where men are tested and found, all too often, to be wanting. The parties went out in the morning. Two priests blessed the earls. The king, resplendent in a robe of rich blood-red, presided from a shaded pavilion. He was young then, his hair as dark as a raven’s feathers, his jaw so square it might have been carved from stone, and not yet married – his beautiful queen, Eufeme, would be won in a few years’ time. The crowd and two earls waited until the sun stood directly overhead so neither would have the advantage. Then the young lords took to the pitch. One of the earls wore armour his father had given him, with gold worked into the greaves, so that he sparkled in the sun, a gleaming paragon of manhood. The other wore a helm, won in a battle against the Danes, set with precious gems, and with every turn of his head, green and red crystals glowed; never had a man seemed more worthy.

The king raised his hand; the earls raised their swords, saluting one another. Their squires had sharpened those swords at that day’s dawning, working the edges with a whetstone until either earl could have shaved his throat, so keen were they. They set their stances. Behind the king, in the shade of the pavilion, the earls’ wives, those two twins, clung to each other and wept, tears staining their angelic faces.

The king dropped his hand, the trumpet blasted, the two earls leapt at each other, their blades shrieking, locking, the two men grappling, leaping back, trying each to gain the advantage over the other. But they were as well-matched in war as in wives and so within an hour, both earls lay dead upon the ground. The twins were now widows. The two spring flowers of knighthood had been plucked too early and their two ladies, once perfect lilies, were now left to wilt.

King Evan flew into a terrible rage – what an utter waste! What vile stupidity! If it went on like this, he’d have no knights left. And so he declared, from that day forward, no girl or woman anywhere in his kingdom could inherit a thing. Not land, not title, not even a skein of yarn.

He seized the twins’ father’s lands for himself, sent the bereaved twin widows to a convent, and …

My stranger’s name proved true for a moment. Silence. The cat came around again and jumped into their lap. It eyed me as I poured more wine. Around us, the inn had darkened. Night waited at the windows. A gust rattled the door, pushed down against the flames in the hearth. Then they leapt back up, illuminating a golden highlight in Silence’s hair, so momentarily radiant, I swore I could smell sun-warmed oats and not the smoky belch of the fire. They leaned back, putting themselves in shadow, nodding to themselves, as if they were telling themselves the story, keeping it from me. Unfair.

I fed the fire another log. I prompted as gently as I could with a conversational nothing: ‘Twins. They’re always evil.’ But even as I mumbled, my mind was spinning out the twists this story might take (a visit from an incubus to the convent, one of the twins conceiving the person who sat beside me). ‘Was it,’ I tried, ‘a demon? Who came to lie with one of the fair twins?’ I paused, but no answer came. ‘Like Merlin’s own begetting?’ I prompted. ‘Surely you know the story how the great wizard’s mother lay with an incubus and that is how Merlin got his sorcer—’

My stranger stirs. ‘You will hear of Merlin soon enough.’

I lean closer to them, my fingers flexing. I could already imagine how I’d tell this tale – how at the earls’ dual fall, I’d strike my harp, thus and so! And the promise of Merlin, and magic to come …

Silence cleared their throat a little. ‘Sometimes it seems it’s all a dream. I wake from one only to find myself in another.’

That voice seized me back to the present. An old man’s words. Odd to hear them in the mild tenor of a boy’s voice, with the huskiness of innocence. I waited, trying to be as patient as a priest.

‘Maybe it doesn’t begin there,’ Silence said at last. ‘Maybe it starts with …’

My stranger was threatening to settle into deep brooding, so I pushed their mug closer. They drank deeply. I watched the cords of their throat move with each swallow (no Adam’s apple, but not all men have one). Some downy hairs on their cheeks, though their words made them seem old enough to be a greybeard. Words! Few enough of those to go around.

‘Perhaps it starts with my father. He served King Evan. Was a knight of his inner circle. Fought at his side in many a battle. But mostly he went hunting.’

We were off again at last, all herky-jerky.

‘My father was Earl Cador.’ They paused as if waiting for a reply.

I mumbled, ‘Ah, Cador,’ as if it were a familiar name. Sons of earls always think their fathers are famous because those fathers hire minstrels to write stories about them. But there are earls enough in this country to pave a road with them. ‘You’re his … son?’ I ventured, hoping they would affirm my choice of ‘boy’.

‘I’m not a bastard, if that’s what you’re asking. Nor am I a liar. I may not look to you like the child of an earl, but I am.’ They levelled their gaze, staring straight into me. ‘I always tell the truth.’

A shame. I thought then that the story would be of little worth, for the truth is seldom wondrous. Moreover, they had dodged the question I asked – neither saying they were Cador’s son, nor saying they weren’t. I pushed aside my frustration and said, ‘Cador … your father? I’ve heard he was brave and gallant in his youth.’ I’d heard no such thing, but then I’ve always thought the virtue of honesty is rather a tepid one.

‘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