The Savage Knight (Malory's Knights of Albion) Read online

  Clouds gathered, obscuring the stars, and the sky grew blacker yet. Even if the wound had not hampered him, Dodinal would have been forced to slow anyway, to make out the scuffed snow the child had left in his wake. Making the task harder yet was his growing desire to sleep, as the cold drained warmth and strength from his body. Sleep was the cure for all ills, he’d heard it said, but not here and not now; if he gave in and slept, he would not wake up again. But it was hard, so hard, to keep going, to force one leg to move and then the other, over and over until he could think of nothing else. The snow came down hard and the wind picked up, blowing stinging white flakes into his face and blinding him. Dodinal’s head was light. He had given up all hope of following the child now. It was all he could do to stay on his feet and stumble through the deepening shadows.

  Just when he thought he could not take another step, he saw lights in the distance. Real lights, not life-lights, burning bright in the darkness. Torches, he realised, moving through the trees ahead of him. A hound barked excitedly, as if it had picked up a familiar scent. Now Dodinal could hear voices, too, calling out, the wind devouring the words. When he tried to call back, his voice was a croak in his throat. The lights began to spin, the world spinning with them. He staggered and fell. Then there was nothing but darkness.

  1Le Sauvage, a title he shares in various sources with Sir Balin and Sir Balan. Literally “wild” or “untamed,” its usually interpreted in Arthurian texts as referring to a fondness for hunting, rather than to the knight’s temperament; Malory appears to be suggesting both interpretations. See Appendix II for more on Sir Dodinal.

  TWO

  The boy lay buried under a pile of furs and tried to sleep.2 When he had ventured out with his father in search of game, it had been colder than he imagined possible. They had hunted together since the boy was small, but this time, the icy air had brought tears to his eyes and had driven him back indoors, leaving his father to hunt alone.

  Now he was warm and snug, with a full belly and furs heaped on top of him. A blanket hung from the ceiling, separating his pallet from the rest of the hut. Beyond it, the fire burned brightly, popping and snapping and throwing dancing shadows on the walls. Between the furs and the fire and his father’s hound curled at his feet, the boy wondered if he had imagined the cold after all.

  But while he was comfortable and his eyelids drooped, he could not sleep. Perhaps it was the low murmur of his parents’ voices that kept him awake. They would not take to their bed for a while yet. He smiled a drowsy smile and closed his eyes.

  He must have drifted off, for when he opened them again the hut was in darkness, the fire a subdued glow behind the blanket. For a moment the boy wondered what had woken him. Then he heard the clamour of many voices raised outside.

  Seconds later there came a curse and a thump as his father threw his boots to the floor and pulled them on, followed by a fast rustling as he put on his outer garments. The boy’s mother started to speak, but his father hushed her.

  He raised himself up on one elbow, a thrill of excitement surging through him. Something was happening. He thought he smelled smoke. A fire? It was only when he heard the unmistakeable rasp of a blade being drawn from its sheath that he felt the first stirrings of fear. Why would his father need his sword if someone’s hut was on fire? Before he could call out to ask what was happening, footsteps clumped across the floor and the door opened, letting in a freezing blast of air that the boy felt despite the furs. “Stay here,” his father commanded. “If the worst happens, take the boy and hide in the woods. Whatever you do, don’t let them take you.”

  “Be careful,” his mother replied, sounding strained. “Come back to me.”

  “I will. Remember what I said. And you be careful too.”

  With that the door slammed shut. For a moment there was silence inside the hut, and then the sound of quiet weeping. The boy could stand it no longer. He pushed the furs away and got up.

  The fire had burned low and his father had been in too much of a hurry to feed more wood to the flames. The air was cold enough to make him shiver. The hound was gone; his father must have taken it with him. Pushing past the blanket, he crept across the floor towards his parents’ bed, not sure if he would be in trouble for getting up at such a late hour, but desperately needing to be with his mother. He had never heard her cry before and did not like how it made him feel, empty and helpless.

  A board creaked beneath his feet and the crying stopped.

  “Dodinal? Is that you?”

  He stepped closer until he could see her in the low light, sitting upright on the edge of her pallet, hands pressed to her face.

  “What’s wrong, mother?”

  For a moment she did not answer, but then she held out her arms.

  Dodinal ran into them, the bad feeling going away as she held him close. “What’s happening?” His face was pressed into her chest, so the words sounded muffled.

  “Nothing you need to worry about. Everything will be fine.”

  The shouting grew closer. There were other sounds, too, reverberating through the night: metal clashing on metal, dogs barking and yelping, the roar and crackle of great fires burning. Tendrils of smoke snaked under the door, making the boy cough. His mother held him tight. Then she pushed him away and abruptly stood. “We have to go.”

  “Why? What’s happening?” He knew he had already asked but had not had an answer. “Why is there so much smoke?”

  “No time for explanations,” his mother snapped as she wrapped her cloak around her. “Get your boots and put a second shirt on. Oh, and don’t forget your cloak. Quickly, Dodinal!”

  He went back to his pallet, dragged his boots and a shirt from under the furs and hastily pulled them on. He could hear his mother pacing anxiously. The moment he was dressed, she grabbed him by the hand and squatted down so she could look him directly in the eyes. “You have to be brave.”

  Her voice trembled. Dodinal’s throat tightened. He was sad, and scared. His world had been ripped apart in an instant. Whatever was happening, it must be very bad. It sounded like fighting. But that was impossible. Why would there be fighting here?

  “I will,” he said.

  His mother hugged him briefly. “Just move quickly and do everything I tell you, understand?”

  Dodinal nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  “That’s good.” His mother somehow managed a smile. “My big, brave boy. Now we must go.”

  She hesitated momentarily before taking a deep breath, pulling open the door and hurrying out, pulling him closely behind her. Dodinal blinked, trying to make sense of what he saw. Most of the village was in flames. Thick clouds of smoke boiled into the night sky and swirled between the huts. Sparks flew everywhere. People were running around. Dodinal saw a man stagger about like someone who’d had too much to drink. He fell to the ground and lay still. Others were already down, their bodies broken and twisted. Firelight flashed from naked blades. Screams of pain and roars of anger rent the air, as did the maddened baying of hounds. It was like the ground had swallowed up the world and sent it to hell.

  His mother pulled at him impatiently. They ran from the village, away from the fighting, heading for the woods. It was bitterly cold, but his cloak kept the worst of it away, and exertion did the rest. At least he and his mother would be safe. There were places to hide if you knew where to look for them, and Dodinal knew them all. He had loved wandering through the forest for as long as he could remember, especially in the spring when the trees burst into life after slumbering all winter. He had never once got lost. If his mother did not know the way, Dodinal would guide her. He would keep her from harm.

  They were a stone’s throw away from the sanctuary of the wildwood when his mother cried out and stumbled, her hand pulling from his as she fell headlong to the ground. Dodinal reached down to help her up but she whimpered in pain when she tried to stand. He heard deep voices, drawing closer, lending fresh urgency to his attempt to lift her. There was no
way of knowing whether they belonged to his people or those who had attacked the village. He could not take a chance; better to run from a friend than linger to be killed by an enemy. “Please,” he implored. “You have to get up. Just a few steps more and we’ll be in the woods. They’ll never find us.”

  His mother pushed him away. “Go on without me.”

  “No!” His vision blurred. There was a burning in his throat that had nothing to do with the smoke. “I’ll never leave you.”

  She squeezed his fingers hard enough to make him wince. “I don’t care about anything other than you, son. Go. I’ll find you.”

  Before Dodinal had chance to respond his mother’s eyes widened in sudden terror and he was struck a blow to the head, hard enough to knock him senseless.

  When he came to, he was in a heap on the ground, face pressed into the cold earth. A ringing filled his ears and he shook his head to clear them. For a moment he was too dazed to know what had happened. Then he remembered being hit, and scrambled to his feet, looking around wildly.

  A man twice as tall as Dodinal had taken hold of his mother. He had one arm wrapped around her waist and his free hand clamped over her mouth to smother her screams. He was dragging her away from the forest, towards the village. She struggled to break free, but the man was too strong. Without pausing to think, Dodinal ran at him, grabbed one of his legs and sunk his teeth into it.

  The man kicked out, roaring words in a guttural language the boy did not understand. Dodinal held on with all his strength and bit down again. Blood filled his mouth. Yelling, the man struggled to shake him off and keep hold of this mother at the same time. Then he released his grip on her waist to bring his fist down hard on Dodinal’s head.

  It hurt, but the boy stubbornly refused to let go. A second blow came, this one harder than the first. White light exploded behind his eyes, and his fingers loosened. Had he not let go, the third blow would have knocked him out cold. He tumbled to the earth and felt a gust of air as the man’s fist missed him by inches.

  Dodinal rolled away and jumped to his feet, wiping his eyes and trying to ignore the pounding in his skull. He tensed, expecting another blow, but the man was not interested in Dodinal, only in his mother. Furious, the boy charged at him again. This time the man was ready and swatted him away like a troublesome fly. The back of his hand smacked into Dodinal’s face and blood erupted from the boy’s nose. This time it took him longer to get to his feet. When he did, his legs trembled so violently he feared he would collapse.

  Yet he would not give up. Again and again he ran at the man. Each time he was halted brutally in his tracks. One of his eyes closed up. Blood from a cut to his forehead mixed with the blood streaming from his nose until his face and tunic were soaked crimson.

  All the while, his mother’s struggles and muffled screaming drove him on. Finally the man finally tired of the boy’s relentless onslaughts, threw his captive to the ground and kicked her hard in the stomach to silence her and prevent her from escaping, then drew his sword.

  Dodinal’s gaze flicked between the blade and his mother’s groaning, writhing form. The man tossed the sword from one hand to the other, showing off, his mouth splitting into a gap-toothed grin behind his filthy beard. He was close enough for Dodinal to see the soot and blood that smeared his face. He was huge, a man-mountain.

  Dodinal’s sole hope of survival was to dash for the forest. Emotions tore him up. He loved his mother, and every part of him cried out to stay there, but he would be no use to her dead. If he could escape and lay low until the invaders moved on, he could find help and go looking for her.

  The man-mountain raised the sword, and Dodinal whirled around and ran, sprinting as fast as his unsteady legs and heaving chest would allow. His feet slapped across the hard earth. Trees loomed out of the darkness, almost close enough to touch. Something whistled past his ear and an axe thudded into an oak immediately ahead of him.

  Knowing how close he had come to having his head taken off spurred him on. As desperate as he was to look back at his mother, he had to watch his step to avoid tripping. The countless hours he had spent in the woods saved him, for he ran at a pace and with a sure-footedness that his pursuer found hard to keep up with.

  Even when the trees closed around him he knew he was still not safe. He had to get deeper into the forest, to one of his secret hiding places. Dodinal plunged headlong into the darkness, avoiding being snared by brambles or slipping on the leafy mulch.

  There was a rustle and a loud thud from behind him, and a grunt of pain. The man must have tripped. He sounded closer than Dodinal had thought.

  He drove on, pushing himself hard. The sky was clear and the winter winds had torn the leaves from the branches, but the trees were so closely packed together that moonlight and stars were not enough to show the way. He knew these woods, and the warrior did not.

  Dodinal had another advantage. He could see the trees even in the dark. Their life lights were everywhere; dim, like candles in distant windows. He remembered the first time he saw them. He had been very little and had thought they were fireflies, until he reached out for one and his hand scraped against cold, hard bark. When he had told his parents, they had made him swear never to speak of it to anyone. People would think he was slow in the head. So it became his secret, the lights he could see in the trees and the beasts of the wild.

  He headed deep into the forest, moving with barely a sound. An echoing voice called out, taunts or threats perhaps, but it soon faded and then was gone. He was alone. Alone and cold and sick with hurt and misery. All he could see was his mother’s face, her eyes blazing fiercely as she struggled to break free from the man’s grip.

  Don’t let them take you. She hadn’t let them take her, Dodinal had. He should have done more to help, should have run back to the village, not away from it, should have... should have...

  No! It didn’t matter what he should have done or what he had had failed to do. None of it would have made any difference. He could not have protected his mother. Going back to the village would only have got him killed, he was sure of it.

  The certainty did not make him feel better.

  He found a path and followed it. When it forked, he continued right for a while and then stepped from it to trudge through the tangle of undergrowth. Eventually, he came to an oak, ancient and massive, its life flickering and failing, with a split in its trunk barely wide enough for the boy to squeeze through. Inside it was hollow, the floor littered with dried leaves, small bones and mice droppings. Filthy, but at least it offered some shelter from the cold. Dodinal wrapped his cloak tightly around him and sat with his back pressed against the wood, hugging himself and trying in vain to stem the rising tears.

  He cried until he felt empty, as hollow as the tree.

  A long time later, he slept.

  When he awoke he was in the hut again, flat on his back on a scratchy straw mattress, looking up at the rafters. Grey light crept in through the smoke hole in the roof. The fire crackled steadily in its pit. Otherwise there was silence.

  Dodinal frowned in groggy confusion. Had it all just been a bad dream, a nightmare so vivid it had felt real?

  He raised his hands. They were the hands of a grown man, not a boy, etched with scars and with skin chafed from months of exposure.

  It had been a memory, not a dream.

  He remembered something else. Something far more recent. The boy in the forest, the wolves. His hand reached down to his right thigh and brushed against a thick wad of cloth. The wound throbbed but was nothing like as painful as it had been.

  Still, he knew he was far from well. Every bone and muscle ached as if he had been beaten. He was burning with fever and reeked of sour sweat. It could have been worse. In the woods he had been certain he was going to die. Someone had obviously tended to him, but he had no idea who. He had no recollection of being brought here.

  Wherever here was.

  Exhaustion washed over him. He could not even lift his head. Jus
t before he drifted back to sleep, he heard a rustle of movement and shuffling feet next to where he lay, and through half-closed eyes saw the boy from the woods staring down at him.

  Then he surrendered to weariness and slept the dreamless sleep of the dead.

  2The bulk of this chapter, and parts of chapters 4, 7 and 9, are drawn from the Lesser Dodinal rather than the Second Book; see Appendix I.

  THREE

  Dodinal awoke to darkness. He had slept all day, if not days. Certainly he felt better than the last time he was conscious, when the boy had regarded him with those startling blue eyes. Now that seemed no more real than a dream. The fever had broken and the strength had returned to his limbs. But when he tried to sit up he had to bite on his lip to stop himself crying out. It seemed the wound in his leg was far from healed.

  “Keep still,” a woman’s voice ordered. Firm hands pushed him down. He did not resist, sinking back into the rough, uneven mattress with a low groan.

  He caught glimpses of the woman as she rearranged the furs he had disturbed attempting to get up. Questions crowded his mind, but he could not voice them. His throat burned as if he had swallowed an ember. He craned his neck to get a proper look at her, but she was busy tending to him and there was too little light to see clearly by.

  “Try that again and you’ll make it worse,” she chided, but not unkindly. Her voice had a musical lilt to it. He had heard such accents before on his travels along the Welsh border but it seemed to him that hers was perhaps sweeter than most. “You’re on the mend, but you have a long way to go yet.”