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Chapter Eight Ailyth was younger, she knew that straightaway, and she was out chasing her sisters in the fields. There were butterflies, and the air was warm and fresh, and the gentle scent of fresh grass was wafting in the breeze. As the day drew on it became hotter, and the girls made their way back to the manor, sweaty, unkempt, with no shoes, but happy. A carriage rolled slowly past, and a boy looked out at her. He had long fair hair and dazzling blue eyes, and he smiled at her. Ailyth stopped still, paralysed by his grin. She could do nothing but stare at the stranger who was entering the manor. The carriage stopped, the boy jumped out and made his way to her. All the noise her sisters were making faded away, and she wished desperately that she was wearing her Sunday best, and didn’t look quite so clammy. Her heart stopped as he held out his hand to introduce himself and said;
“Ailyth, get up!”
What?
“Ailyth, I said get up. Come on, wake up, quickly.”
Ailyth jumped up quickly, mumbling, as the images in her head sank away to the back of her mind. RiffRaff was sitting by her side, looking agitated as she held her head to stop the room from spinning.
“I think I’m dying,” she gasped.
RiffRaff tutted, and hopped up her arm, onto her shoulder. “Jesu, your breath smells worse than ever,” he said. “No more ale for you!”
Wiping her mouth, Ailyth had to nod in agreement. There appeared to be a sticky white fur growing on her lips, accompanied by a raging thirst and a pounding headache that beat a resounding rhythm at the back of her skull. Standing up, still in her travelling clothes, she grabbed desperately at the wall to stop the feeling of the floor wobbling beneath her but it was no good; the walls were wobbling too. Ailyth considered this for a moment before saying:
“I’m going to be sick.”
“Fine; be sick, then put your boots on,” RiffRaff said irritably. “Come on, let’s hurry!”
“Oh Benedicte, did I do anything silly last night?”
“Oh no,” RiffRaff muttered through clenched teeth as he dragged Ailyth’s hooded cloak across the filthy floor towards her. “You just informed everyone where we were going, got into an argument with a complete stranger who, I might add, had been very courteous towards you, and you had to be taken to bed. Nothing too shameful.”
Ailyth slumped down onto the bed again. “Oh no,” she wailed.
With plenty of cajoling from RiffRaff, Ailyth painfully managed to tie her boots and slip the cloak over her shoulders. Perhaps, she thought, if I move very slowly, I might survive the day. Even slight movement made the crushing feeling in her skull triple.
Without warning, RiffRaff jumped onto her shoulder and hissed “Shhh!” Ailyth didn’t know what had got into him as he listened intently. The only sound she could hear was the thumping in her head.
“You have to hide,” he said suddenly, panic rising in his voice. “There’s someone coming, I can hear them.”
“It’s probably just the landlady,” Ailyth replied.
RiffRaff shook his head and nuzzled into her neck. “No,” he whispered. “There are several people, men, in heavy boots. They’re coming this way, and I can hear them talking. They mean you harm, Ailyth. We have to hide.”
Ailyth snorted. “Don’t be daft,” she said. “Why would anyone wish to harm me?”
“Please!” RiffRaff begged, skipping around on her shoulder in fear. “If I’m wrong, I’ll apologise, but we must be on the safe side.”
Sighing, Ailyth looked around her and shrugged. Aside from the bed and the fireplace, there really was nowhere to hide. She shrugged as if to say ‘that’s that, then,’ but RiffRaff wasn’t content.
“Up the fireplace,” he ordered, but Ailyth shook her head.
“No,” she said firmly. “Not on your life. It’s dangerous, and dirty, and probably filled with spiders. I’m not doing it.”
At that instant, a harsh knocking began at her door.
“Open up!” a voice barked, and Ailyth’s skin grew cold. That was no friendly voice, and these were no casual knocks on the door. RiffRaff had been right; someone did mean her harm.
Thankful that it was still warm, and that the fire had not been lit for some months, Ailyth began to pull herself up the narrow recess in the wall. The stones were craggy enough for her to grip, and she heaved herself up into the opening of the chimney, frightened that she would not be quick enough, or that the chimney would get too narrow for her to climb any further.
RiffRaff dug his claws into her skin as a cloud of soot and loose stones gushed towards them and filled their lungs, and Ailyth stumbled, slipping down as her foothold proved not to be sufficiently strong.
“We’ll never do it,” she coughed, feeling her hands weaken.
“Yes we will,” RiffRaff reassured her. “Just a little further, and then they won’t see us.”
ust as Ailyth hauled them both a few inches higher, the door crashed open and the room was filled with the sound of men. She instinctively held her breath as she heard them rummage around the room, and felt a bead of sweat trickle from the end of her nose as one of them swore.
“She’s not here,” a gruff voice said. “Now what?”
Footsteps moved towards the window. “She hasn’t gone this way,” a lighter voice muttered. “Jesu, that fool of an innkeeper tricked us. “Her horse is still here,”” he mimicked, putting on the voice of the man who had welcomed Ailyth in, the night before. “She must have gone on foot.”
The unmistakable sound of a sword being drawn echoed up the chimney and Ailyth shuddered, growing unbearably hot. Her arms were shaking now, and she knew that any moment she might slip down into the fireplace.
“Then we go after her, you fools,” another man, clearly in charge, said. “And we don’t stop until we find her. Go, now.”
Ailyth stayed in the chimney for as long as she could after the men left the room. Scared that somehow she might have been tricked, she sent RiffRaff down first. Only when he gave the all-clear did she painfully lower herself.
“What...? Why...?” she stammered, her body trembling as it hit her how close to danger she had been.
“I don’t know,” RiffRaff said, a grim look on his black face. “But we must go now, before they come back.”
He had no reason to assume that they would come back, but it seemed safer to him to keep on the move, so the pair of them slipped out into the stables and saddled Ailyth’s horse.
“We travel by woodlands this time,” RiffRaff said. “We should stay hidden.”
There wasn’t a choice in the matter. As they rode out of Bristol they saw, a little way on the road ahead of them, a group of men on horseback, travelling with their heads down in determination. Dust rose from the dry ground as they sped, and for a moment all Ailyth could do was stop and wait for them to get out of sight.
“Do you think that could be them?” she asked RiffRaff.
He shook his head. “They looked like monks,” he said, watching as they disappeared into the distance. “It’s probably just a coincidence.”
Coincidence or not, Ailyth wasn’t prepared to risk her life. She veered the horse off the path and rode her into the snarl of trees and brambles that surrounded the roadside.
Even at the hazy start of a warm summers day, the woods were dark and forbidding. The dense canopy of leaves and branches gave the illusion of night and stopped the sun from giving out any warmth, and the thicket swamped the path, making it appear that there was no route through at all. Clearly no-one had travelled through for some time.
Ailyth slowed the horse down to a moderate pace. “Not too quickly,” she explained to RiffRaff. “The faster we go, the more noise we make and besides, we need to listen ourselves.”
Progress was frustrating through the woods, as the forest itself wanted to hold up their journey, and briars tangled themselves around the mare’s legs almost deliberately. Several times she simply refused to go forwards, and Ailyth had to jump down and urge her forward, talking softly and trying to stop her hands from shaking as she held the reins.
I nearly died, she thought. Someone is trying to kill me.
She couldn’t be sure the men had that intention in mind, but why else were they looking for her, and why had a sword been drawn? RiffRaff couldn’t help her either, as he was just as confused as she was. All he could say was that Heloise had said there would be people trying to cause trouble for her.
“ ‘There might even be those out to harm you,’” she remembered. “Jesu, but why?”
“Some things thrive on chaos,” RiffRaff said, echoing again Heloise’s words. “Other than that, I know as much as you.”
It troubled Ailyth that there were people trying to stop her in her mission almost as much as it frightened her that there were people trying to kill her. Guilty though it made her feel, she half wanted to abandon her journey home and run somewhere safe, where the plague couldn’t touch her.
But where? she thought. Nowhere will be safe, will it? And it’s my fault. I started this. Now I have to put an end to it.
It was a sobering and terrifying thought. Inside, despite her marriage and the quest, Ailyth still felt like a little girl, and the thought that she had such a monumentous task to do bewildered her. Perhaps if she’d had an idea about how she could put an end to the plague she would have felt more confident, but she still knew nothing, and was blindly going home only because she had been told to, in the desperate hope that Heloise could help her, or at least tell her what she should do. So she continued, afraid for her life but afraid of what would happen if she stopped.
As they travelled deeper into the woods, Ailyth began to lose her grip. The trees seemed to reach down to snatch at her, and even the sound of a fox moving through the undergrowth sent stabbing pains of panic directly to her heart. The slightest crackle of a leaf moved by a bird, or the sound of a twig being snapped underfoot, was not the sounds of nature in her ears. It was the sound of a murderer, or a dark spirit hunting her down, someone coming after her, the twisted ceiling of branches closing her in and making escape impossible.
“Calm down,” RiffRaff soothed when he saw her grow twitchy in the saddle. “It’s just the same noise that’s made in every forest in England. No-one has followed us in here.”
It helped, to be reassured like this, and for a while Ailyth was sedate, but the feeling of claustrophobia was adding to something else, a sense of unease that she couldn’t quite shake off.
"I feel strange,” she said to RiffRaff.
“Hardly surprising,” RiffRaff replied. “We’ve been out in the open for the best part of a week.”
Ailyth nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I know,” she said. “But something else is wrong.” Something that she should have been thinking of. Something important. She gasped suddenly as a cold thought hit her. Elfrida! Pulling the bowl Heloise had given her out of her cloak, Ailyth emptied a skein of water into it. This will help me, she thought to herself, remembering what Heloise had told her. It will show me what I need to be shown, when I need to be shown it.
She looked at the bowl for a few minutes. What was she supposed to do with it? She shook it a little, and lifted it to her face, but nothing changed. It was still a drinking bowl.
“Show me Elfrida!” she demanded, and it was then that the water went milky, and a picture formed on it’s surface.
Elfrida lay dead.
“No!” Ailyth cried, hurling the bowl across the forest and dropping from the horse. The bowl had lied to her, Elfrida could not be dead. She was a good person, a kind person. She could not be dead.
But that did not erase the image of Elfrida’s still-warm, pox-covered body burned into her eyes.
“I should have made her come with me,” she sobbed to RiffRaff as he pulled the bowl back to her. “I should have forced her to. I left her to die...she would never have left me to die.”
“You had to,” RiffRaff said softly, but there were no words he could say to ease Ailyth’s pain. She rocked on her knees and cried until there were no more tears and, when she could not go on even if she wanted to, the rat urged her up. She numbly pocketed the bowl and mounted the horse.
Her guilt was so compounded that RiffRaff was the first to hear something following them, but he kept it to himself. They couldn’t run at any rate; the paths were too overgrown and they would be thrown from the horse in seconds. He listened closer. A rustling sound; sometimes muffled, sometimes crisp, and the sound of careful footsteps. Was it the men? Or maybe a wolf. Standing on his hind legs, he sniffed the air but there were too many other scents confusing him. Finally he said to Ailyth, “There’s something stalking us.”
Ailyth immediately turned around, but there was nothing there. “Are you sure?” she asked nervously, and RiffRaff nodded. “Is it the men?”
“I don’t know,” RiffRaff replied. “It might be. Or it might be an animal. Let’s go just a little faster.”
Ailyth urged the mare to move, and couldn’t help but look over her shoulder every couple of seconds to scrutinise the trees behind her. “I still can’t see anything,” she said.
“No,” RiffRaff agreed. “They’re keeping themselves well hidden.” He shuffled nervously on her shoulder. “Keep going,” he said.
The noise of whatever was behind them swiftly grew louder, so that even Ailyth could hear it, and they soon realised that they were being closed in. A leaf shaking to the right of them, a branch cracking behind, the swish of movement in front made them realise that their pursuers were circling them, keeping them trapped yet not attacking them. Ailyth fumbled with the charms Heloise had given her, hidden in her pocket. “They’ll keep us safe,” she murmured, again and again. “They’ll keep us safe.”
All at once the brambles to the left of them parted, and a creature came rushing out at them. The mare reared back in alarm and Ailyth yelped, but the creature was not going towards them. Instead, it rushed around at the circle of hidden enemies, brandishing a burning log and stamping at the floor.
“Away from her, begone!” it cried, thrusting the fire at the invisible beings. “You have no place here, begone!”
It took Ailyth and RiffRaff a couple of moments to realise that the creature fighting for them was, in fact, a man, although he had all the presence of a bear as he raged around them. Covered in a tangle of bushy brown hair, and wearing ripped sack-cloth for his clothes, he was an awesome figure, like an animal himself. Ailyth shrank against her horse as he raised a racket around them and, in a short time, he was still, having frightened away whatever it was that was following them.
“Interesting company you keep,” he said to Ailyth, panting slightly. “Lucky I was here, really.”
Ailyth stared at her saviour. “What were those things?” she asked.
The hairy man tapped the side of his nose knowingly and produced a clay pipe from one of the many folds of his jerkin. “Miserable creatures,” he said. “Wouldn’t want to scare yer.”
“Not man?”
“Oh no, not human.”
Ailyth leaned forward. “Faeries?” she asked.
The man clenched his teeth around his pipe and looked at her. “What do you know about faeries?”
Ailyth didn’t reply, but there was something in the way that she watched evenly back that seemed to convince the man that she hadn’t just been guessing. “Aye,” he said quietly. “Faeries. Bad kind, terrible sort they are. You must have had a ring of protection around you, or they would have had you!”
The fire stone burned slightly against Ailyth’s hand, and she nodded.
The man grinned at her once more. “Well, that’s reassuring to know, ‘though I wish I’d known before I went running out like that, because I would have saved myself some trouble.” He stuck his hand out towards her. “People call me Granfer Grigg around these parts,” he said. “Whom have I had the pleasure of having tried to protect?”
There was something hearty in his eyes that made Ailyth automatically hold her hand back out at him, although she wouldn’t give her name. As RiffRaff was keen to remind her, she needed to be cautious.
His rough hand took hers, and a surge of warm fire spread up her arm. It filled her body with the glow of a thousand summer days and pushed a rich blush to her cheeks, forcing her into a grateful smile. With the feeling that someone had wrapped a soft blanket around her and was keeping her safe, she knew she could trust him with her life.
“My name’s Ailyth,” she beamed.
Granfer half closed his eyes when she said this, and he smiled to himself. “Quite so, quite so,” he said softly, although only RiffRaff heard him. He went into a quiet trance for a few moments, smiling, until he started a little and shook his head.
“Where are my manners?” he cried. “It’s near evening, and you must be tired. Would it please you, Lady de Monbardier, to follow me, and perhaps sit by my fire until morning comes, because it will be a cold one tonight.”
Ailyth stared at him, knowing that he would be no one to fear. There was something so familiar about his little black eyes, and the way his round cheeks shone through his hair. “That would be very kind,” she said, and allowed Granfer to lead them forward.
*** Granfer Grigg was not the only person to spend his nights in the forest. As he led Ailyth to a small clearing filled with smoke from the fire and the smell of roasting food, she could make out dozens of people, all settling down around the flames for the night, and wrapped up in layers of rags to protect against the cold. There were no belongings, few shelters; just the fire and the food, to keep them warm and fed.
Ailyth knew who these people were. She had heard stories. Thieves, bandits, cut-throats, all hiding out in the forest where no-one would find them. Maybe Granfer too. Yet she still felt secure with him, couldn’t believe he’d harm her.
“There see to be quite a few of you,” she said cautiously, and Granfer chuckled.
“Oh yes, we’re a motley band all right,” he said, and helped her dismount. “Some were here before I arrived, and some more have wandered in since. Not a bad life, living under the trees.”
“Are they all outlaws?” Ailyth asked.
“Some of them are,” Granfer said, nodding sagely. “You watch out for Big Mick over there; he’ll pinch the laces out of your boots before you’ve got chance to blink. And there are some who are a bit touched,” he said, twirling his fingers around his head. “Mad. Isn’t their fault though, bless them.”
“And what of the rest?” Ailyth said. “What about you? Why are you here?”
Granfer’s eyes misted as she spoke, and he looked down sadly at his feet. “The rest is here ‘cause they got nowhere else to be,” he said. “The plague’s killed all those they love, and they were too scared to wait around and be next, so they fled here, where there’s a chance of being safe. Me too,” he added quietly.
He sat down on the soft, mossy carpet of the forest. “So what I’m asking myself is this: what’s a young lady of noble birth doing running about in the forest when there’s a plague destroying the country?” He bit on his pipe again and waited for her to answer.
The need to be careful rose in Ailyth again, but one glimpse of the old man leaning against a tree dissolved it. There was almost a glow of peace around him and, although she only opened her mouth to tell him of her quest, she ended up telling him everything; from the death of the hart to her escape from Bristol.
Granfer took in everything she said without surprise, not stopping her as spoke of her sadness at Tristran’s death, and not casting judgement on her as she confessed her role in the plagues arrival in England. He only murmured once, “What’s done is done,” and those few words alone dispelled a little of her guilt.
“You believe me?” Ailyth said incredulously when she had finished. Granfer was staring at her thoughtfully, taking in everything she had said. “Even about the bit with the hart, and the faeries?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked. “I’ve seen magic, I take stock in magic. What’s not to believe about your story?” He scratched his chin, buried somewhere beneath his beard. “So, you braved the city of Bristol, did you?” he said, stretching back against the tree and with one eye closed. “Just put the meat next to me, Morgan.”
Ailyth looked up to see a tall, thin woman carrying a steaming bowl glaring down at her. She put the meat down solidly on the ground and straightened herself towards the girl.
“Bristol!” she shrieked. “You’ve just come from Bristol? Granfer, what are you doing bringing her here? The plague’s at Bristol!”
Immediately a ripple of concern spread around the camp, and Ailyth felt a tight knot of fear in her throat. Some people, those whose lives had already been touched by the sickness, began to creep backwards whilst calling out at Granfer and Ailyth angrily. Others, those who hadn’t yet seen the devastating effects of the plague, were bolder and angrier.
“This is our safe haven, you old fool,” one large man said. “She’s brought the plague here!”
“I haven’t,” Ailyth protested feebly, but this went ignored. The refugees were getting angrier and more frightened as they convinced themselves that Ailyth had the plague, and were calling out for her to be thrown out of the forest, with some even suggesting that she be killed, for safe measure.
“Please, no!” Ailyth begged as the large man picked her up and slid his hand around her throat.
At once, the man fell back, as though stung, and dropped Ailyth. She got up and ran to Granfer, who was standing with one arm outstretched and with red fire in his eyes. “You will leave her,” he cried, and his voice was like a rumbling thunder. “You will not harm her.”
Almost hypnotically, the rest of the camp drifted back begrudgingly to their former places. Ailyth rubbed her throat tensely, but there would be no more attacks. A few people still continued to glare at her, particularly Morgan, who watched her every move, but soon they were reabsorbed in the pastime of eating.
“That looking glass sounds very interesting,” Granfer said as Ailyth looked away from the small crowd. “Would you mind if I glanced at it?”
Something in his voice compelled Ailyth to take the bowl out of her cloak, and she held it out to him, for his inspection. He studied it carefully for a few moments, turning it over in his hands and examining closely the leaves carved into the side.
“Good magic craft,” he said thoughtfully. “Does it work?”
Ailyth felt her eyes grow watery as she thought of seeing Elfrida, covered in sores. “Yes,” she said quietly.
Granfer walked towards a barrel of rainwater and scooped the bowl into it. Steadily he brought it back to her and said,“Who do you want to see most in the world?”
Only one name could ever spring to her mind, and she had said Tristran before she had even thought. Immediately she closed her eyes; she didn’t want to see Tristran three months dead and she begged the bowl not to show it.
“Hmmm,” Granfer said, sloshing the water around. “Ah well.”
Ailyth peeped into the bowl, to see what he was muttering about. It didn’t sound like the noise one would make when facing a skeleton.
All that she saw in the bowl were the faces of Granfer, RiffRaff and herself, reflected back at them.
Half of Ailyth was relieved, as she didn’t want to see Tristran as he was now. But there was still a little part of her that was disappointed, hoping somehow that he would be reflected as a smiling, handsome spirit. He had truly gone from the world.
“It hasn’t worked,” she said.
Granfer smiled sadly. “Perhaps it’s because he’s dead, my dear,” he said.
"No,” Ailyth replied. “It showed me my friend this morning. A friend who’s...no longer alive.” She looked at the floor bitterly.
“Well,” Granfer said tactfully. “Perhaps he’s been...gone too long.”
Ailyth nodded, and stared blankly ahead. It was a silly wish, too much to hope for. They sat, for a while, in silence.
“So,” Granfer said, trying to distract Ailyth and chewing on his pipe again, “you’re trying to stop the plague?” Ailyth nodded, and he sucked in. “That’s no easy task,” he said. “No easy task at all. Have you got any ideas on how to do it?”
Ailyth shook her head. “I just know that Heloise...my nursemaid...well, she knows about these things. She said that I must go back to my home manor, when the bad thing starts. And that’s what I’ve been trying to do, since my husband got sick. But I got a little lost.”
“Indeed,” Granfer said. “Still, you’re on the right track now. Maybe I might even be able to help though, like yourself, I haven’t got any idea how to stop the plague. It’ll take something big, I think.” He scratched his beard for a few seconds. “A woman travelling alone, in this day and age. Well, my dear, ” he said, shooting a look at his resentful companions, “I think I’d better accompany you on this...journey of yours.”
Ailyth gave him an odd look. “Why would you do that? she asked.
Granfer tilted his head a little. “Each day, more and more people come here, to escape the illness, to try and save themselves, if they can, and already hundreds of people have died. You might be our only hope. You are our only hope, if what you say is true. You need help, my dear. Protection, at the very least, by the sound of things.”
The sound of the sword being drawn in the inn flickered back into Ailyth’s memory, and she nodded. “I don’t know why the men are after me,” she said. “But they frightened me, and I know they’ll be back.”
“More than likely,” Granfer agreed. “But I would say they’re the least of your worries.”
Ailyth raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” she said.
“Beware of the dark ones,” he said, tapping the side of his nose as he did before. “They are more of a danger to you than those men you heard at the inn.”
No matter how hard she tried, Ailyth found it difficult to be afraid of a danger she hadn’t seen, but she found herself nodding anyway. I need someone’s help, she thought. At least, until I get back to Heloise. With Granfer there to protect her, she rested a little easier that night.
*** The girl was asleep. That was good. Slowly Granfer eased himself up and moved towards her. The oak-bowl was lying next to her.
As he reached down to grab it, RiffRaff raised his head. “Hello,” he smiled.
Granfer smiled back. “I thought it was you,” he said. “Tell me, how’s she doing really?”
RiffRaff replied, “All right. She’s made of strong stuff. But it’s been so hard for her already.”
The old man nodded, filling the bowl again. Silently RiffRaff crept away from Ailyth and sat by his side. Together they looked into the bowl as Granfer said:
“Show me Grethel.”
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