Merlin Read online

  He had no doubt the wild man could have gone through the woods leaving no sign at all. He had heard the stories. How the wodewose lived in the company of serpents and wolves and the mam moth forest bulls. How their strength lay in their shaggy locks which if shorn left them pitiful and weak. How they lived on water and flesh, the water from the streams and the raw flesh of wild beasts. How like kings in their castles, they ruled a great domain, but their vassals were stag and doe, boar and sow, he-bear and she-bear, all the inhabitants of the wood.

  As he remembered the tales, he lost the thread of the wild man's trail and stumbled—as if by chance—into another meadow that was small and manageable and ringed by tall beech trees. And there, in tented dwellings, like the Hebrews of old, was an entire town of wild men. And wild women. And wild children as well.

  Astonished, he stood for a moment, unmoving.

  It was one of the wild children who first spotted him, calling out in a high, thin voice, the accent almost masking meaning, "Look, 'ee, wha' cum'ere."

  Alerted, the rest of the wild folk looked up from their chores. Some had been stretching hides, some cutting great logs, still others turning spitted meat over small cookfires. But at the child's warning—for warning it seemed to be—they stared at the intruder and cried out as with a single voice some kind of wild ululation.

  Slowly, hands out to show he meant them no harm, the boy came into their midst and they all arose, ringing him round. The men were in the front, women and children behind.

  He tried not to stare at them but could not help himself. They were to a man shaggy, dressed in leather skins and jackets of fur, with unkempt beards and long, straggly locks; their faces were all horribly scarred and scored as if with fire or brands. The women were more civilized looking, their hair less matted, many carefully braided. The skin clothing the women wore was decorated with feathers and quills. One woman, with bright red hair, had even plaited flowers in her hair.

  The children were indistinguishable boys from girls in their deerskin clothing and unbound locks. He did not think he could tell any of them apart, except that some were more delicately featured and these he took to be girls. He was to discover later on that this was not always true.

  "Where ... is ... the ... one ... who ... found ... me?" he asked, spacing his words out carefully and gesturing broadly, as if talking to an infant or to a person from another land. He was not sure if they could understand his dialect.

  A babble of voices surrounded him, their language like water over stone. The children laughed, hiding their mouths behind their hands.

  "They laugh at the slowness of thy tongue," came a familiar low voice.

  The boy turned and saw the one-eyed wodewose.

  "The children laugh at thy clothing, never having seen any like it. Thee art a strange sight to them," the wodewose continued.

  The soft laughter came again.

  "Never"?"

  "We keep ourselves to ourselves," the wodewose said, and the adults nodded in agreement. "'Tis better that way. We who are grown have seen too much o' the world outside our woods. War and plague and the branding of those who be taking from the overfull larders of the rich to feed their own starving children. The slander of innocents, the burning of witches, the beating of women. We be having enough o' that."

  There was a low murmur that ran around the circle, a dark complement to the light childish laughter.

  The boy nodded.

  "Best we bring thee food," the wild man said. "Thee hath made long passage to find us." He started to turn. "Come!" he said, looking over his shoulder.

  The crowd broke apart to let the boy through and he followed the wodewose, needing two steps to the wild man's one. He could feel the wild folk behind him staring silently. But one small child, whose white-blond shoulder-length hair fairly glowed in the sunlight, followed right at his heels, crying out, "'Oo be thee? 'Uht be thee?" till he turned suddenly and stared down at the child. With a delighted gasp, the child scampered away and hid behind a tent.

  "Do not let our Cub affright thee," the wodewose said.

  The boy found that funny and he laughed out loud. "I think rather I affrighted the Cub."

  "Aught affrights that one," the wodewose said, but with such affection, the boy wondered if the child were the wild man's own. "'Tis all a game for that one. Dogs, wolves, even bears. He comes home with them, one and all. They follow him and do us no harm. He be growing up a king o' these woods."

  "Is that possible?" the boy asked, but in a quiet, respectful voice, because suddenly it seemed to him that with these wild folk anything was possible. Anything at all.

  6. BEDDING

  DINNER WAS LIKE—AND NOT LIKE—DINNERS the boy had had before. Not only did the wild folk roast spit meat on open fires, but they cooked leeks and wild garlic, mushrooms and dark root vegetables in earthenware vessels buried in the coals. At the end of the meal there was even a pudding of wild plums flavored—so the wodewose told him—with sweet cicely. The boy had not been so full except for dining in Duke Vortigern's kitchen the one time.

  "Do you always eat this way?" he asked.

  "This way ... that way..." Cub said. He sat snugged up 'twixt boy and wodewose.

  The wodewose laughed, his good eye closing to a slit. "In wintertide it be sparer. But we know the woods and we know where the food be. We build no stone houses for we must go where needs send. But all the forest be our place." He cuffed Cub good-naturedly; the child giggled at the soft blow and settled under the man's arm.

  "Does he stay then?" asked one of the women, pointing to the boy. She had bristly black hair and something like a brand on her cheek.

  A second woman, the redhead, added, "Thems that eats, works."

  The women set up a babble of agreement until the wild man held up his hand. They silenced at once.

  "He be abandoned in the woods," the wodewose said. "He be one of ours."

  The black-haired woman spat to one side. "He be too old for abandoning. Like as not he's run off."

  "Run away or thrown away," the wodewose said, "he be ours. Can thee honestly say thee did not run off?"

  The dark-haired woman gave the wodewose an unreadable look and walked away. After a moment, the other women followed her.

  The boy was uneasy with what he had just heard. "I do not mean to stay with you more than this one night," he said. "I do not intend to be a..

  "A wild man?" The wodewose laughed, but this time his eye did not become a slit. "Art thee not one already?"

  The boy did not answer. He had meant to say he did not intend to be a trouble to them. He feared that his trail might yet lead Fowler to this quiet camp. And if Fowler, why not Vortigern and his men? But the wodewose's question bothered him so much, he knew he would have to give it thought. Once he had, indeed, lived in the woods on his own, thrown away by someone whose face he had never been able to recall, not even in dreams. But this time he was in the woods because he had willed it himself. Was there a difference? And if there was, what should be his response to it?

  "Come," the wodewose said, breaking through the boy's reverie. "I will show thee where to sleep the night."

  They walked to one of the hide tents and the wild man gestured to it. "This be the tent for boys. Till thee has a name."

  "But I already have a name," the boy said. "Two actually. Hawk. And Hobby." He did not give his true name, Merlin, which was another kind of hawk altogether. For some reason, it suddenly seemed important to him to keep that name hidden.

  "Woods name be one thing, town name an other," said the wodewose.

  The boy nodded. He had always known names were powerful, so it did not surprise him that the wild man knew it, too.

  "Now, Hawk-Hobby, thee must make thy own bed. No one serves an other here. No one rules an other here. As the Greenwitch says, if thee eats with us, thee must work with us."

  "What do I make the bed of?" Hawk-Hobby asked. When he had lived in the woods before, he had had no regular bed but had lain in t
rees for safety, a different tree each night. When he had lived at Master Robin's farm, Mag and Nell had stuffed his mattress with dried grasses and his comforter with feathers from the geese. When he had traveled with the players Ambrosius and Viviane, he had slept in a box bed in their cart. He had actually never made a bed for himself.

  "Thy place, thy choice," the wodewose said, holding up the tent flap for the boy to enter. "So thee must choose with care." Then he dropped the flap and was gone.

  Looking around the tent, the boy saw there were already several beds—hide pallets actually—but they were clearly spoken for. The imprint of bodies was on them and there were yew bows and arrows by the side of two of the beds, a stick dolly by another. He went over to one of the hides and put his hand inside, drawing out a bit of the bedding. It consisted of dried grasses and was musty smelling; not at all sweet, like Mag's stuffing.

  The wodewose was gone and there was no one in the tent to ask, so he lifted up the flap and looked about the camp. There seemed to be only women working for the moment, and frankly they all frightened him.

  "I will find something by myself," he murmured. The grass around the camp was all trampled down, and he knew he would prefer something fresh. So he walked to the meadows edge, listening carefully for a minute in case he should hear again the baying of hounds. Then he plunged into the woods.

  There was something resembling a trail and he followed it, noting his surroundings carefully so he did not get lost. Light was still plentiful in the meadow, but the trail through the woods was already grey with the coming night. Fifteen minutes from the camp he came upon another patch of high meadow and, near it, a tangle of flowering marjoram. He had no carry-bag, so he stripped off his shirt, bundling the grasses and spicy herb together.

  Never minding that his chest and arms were now goosefleshed with the cold, he hoisted the full shirt-bag and followed the path back to the camp. He was sure the women would be pleased with his energy.

  No one paid him any mind when he returned. So he found the boys' tent and went in. When he had dumped his precious grasses into an empty hide mattress, the thing was not even a quarter full.

  He had to make five trips in all before he had the bed full enough to sleep on. By then it was dark, and he was so exhausted he could have slept on the ground. No other boys were yet in the tent, but he was too tired to care. He lay down and fell into a sleep as soft as the bed. His dreams—whatever they were—were as spicy as the herb.

  7. QUARRELS

  HAWK-HOBBY WOKE TO A LOUD NOISE OUTSIDE the tent. For a moment he feared that Fowler had found the camp, then realized the voices were all women's. And they were quarreling.

  He sat up, leaning on one elbow, and saw that the other beds in the tent were now occupied by five boys near his age, and on another the child, Cub, was curled around the stick dolly. The boys were all laughing silently, hands across their mouths.

  "What does it mean?" Hawk-Hobby asked, pointing toward the sound of the women's argument.

  "'Ee..." one boy said, his hand barely moving from his mouth. Then he was convulsed again with silent laughter, and falling back on his bed.

  "'Ee..." a second boy added. "They mock 'ee." He, too, collapsed backward with a fit of giggles.

  The other boys did not even try to speak, so caught were they by the joke's contagion.

  Cub did not laugh. He got off his pallet and came over to Hawk-Hobby, handing him the stick dolly. "Poppet will guard 'ee from the women," he said with great seriousness. Then he went over to the tent flap and lifted it slightly to listen. After a moment, he turned back, "Ooooo, what has 'ee done?"

  "I have done nothing," Hawk-Hobby said, suddenly consumed by guilt for all that he actually had done long before he met the wild folk. He stood up and went over to the tent flap to listen. But when he stuck his head out, the women saw him and their indignation rose even louder till the wodewose himself left the cookfire where the men were huddled.

  "Na, na," he said, by way of trying to quiet the women. It was only when he held up his hands in mock surrender that they were finally still.

  "Come out, boy," he called to Hawk-Hobby.

  Hawk-Hobby started out, remembered the stick dolly, and gave it back to the child. "Best keep Poppet from this trouble, whatever it be," he said. He meant it half humorously, but Cub took the dolly and scrambled back onto his bed to store the stick doll there.

  "What ails them?" Hawk-Hobby asked, with a lightness he certainly did not feel.

  "They be angry with thee," the wodewose said. "It never be wise to anger women."

  "But what have I done?" asked Hawk-Hobby. "I have done nothing wrong."

  "Wrongness be in the beholder's eye," the wodewose said. "Else we all be innocents indeed." He smiled, but it was not reassuring. "Bring out thy bedding. I cannot go in, for I be a man and that be the boys' tent."

  Puzzled, Hawk-Hobby went back and dragged out his bedding, grimly aware that the boys were still laughing at him. But little Cub, at least, tried to help, holding up one end of the hide. That he proved more trouble than help did not matter. Hawk-Hobby gave him a wink by way of thanks and Cub's face immediately lit up.

  No sooner was the mattress clear of the tent flap than the women circled it and began pulling the bedding apart, roughly grabbing out handsful of grass and spreading them on the ground.

  "Here, I worked..." Hawk-Hobby began, but was silenced when the black-haired woman with the scar held up some sprigs of grey-tinted marjoram leaves, now almost black.

  "Organy!" she cried in triumph, and the women with her set up caterwauling anew and tore apart the rest of his bedding.

  "Organy," breathed Cub next to him. "Oooo, that be bad indeed."

  The wodewose grabbed Hawk-Hobby by the arm and led him around the side of the tent, away from the angry women. Cub trotted at their heels. "Thy bed," the wodewose said wearily, "be stuffed with a particular herb. Organy in the old tongue. It has many virtues: it cures bitings and stingings of venom, it be proof against stuffed lungs or the swounding of the heart. But it never be used for bedding as it be too precious for that."

  "I ... I did not know," Hawk-Hobby said miserably.

  "'Ee did not know," echoed Cub. "'Ee did not."

  "Hush ye," said the wodewose, "and be about thy own business." He raised his hand and Cub scampered away around the tent, though Hawk-Hobby could see by the child's shadow that he stopped at the corner and was still listening.

  "I only wanted it for the sweet smell," Hawk-Hobby explained. Indeed, it was the truth.

  "For the sweet smell?" Clearly the wild man was puzzled.

  "Sweet herbs for sweet dreams," Hawk-Hobby finished lamely.

  "Dreams!" Cub came skipping back around the corner of the tent. "'Ee has dreams. We like dreams."

  "I said to be about thy own business, young Cub. Dreams be not the provenance of children." The wodewose's face was dark, as if a shadow had come over it. He turned back to Hawk-Hobby. "Does thee dream?"

  "Does not everybody dream?" Hawk-Hobby was reluctant to discuss his magic with the wild man. But—as if a geas, a binding spell, had been laid upon him—he had to answer when asked about it. And answer truthfully. Though he could give those answers aslant.

  "There be night dreams ... and others," the wild man said. "And I saw thee dream with the dogs yester morn. Why else would I blaze thee a trail here? Still, I be not certain..."

  Hawk-Hobby waited. There was nothing to be answered.

  "Be thee ... a dream-reader?" the wodewose asked carefully.

  Just as carefully, Hawk-Hobby replied. "I have been called so."

  "And be thee called in truth?"

  Hawk-Hobby sighed. There was no getting by that question. "I surely know what my dreams mean. Or at least I often do." It had seemed at first such a small magic, but everyone was so interested in it. It had to mean more.

  "Ahhh," the wodewose said. Then he turned abruptly and walked around the tent, calling out to the women in his rumble of a voice
: "He be a dream-reader. And we without since the last old one died."

  "'Ee surely needs Poppet now," said Cub. "I will bring it to 'ee." He disappeared into the tent.

  No sooner was the child gone than the women rounded the corner, arguing as they came.

  "He be too young," said the redhead.

  "Let him prove it," said an older woman, her hair greying at the temples.

  "But why would he say..." the wodewose began. But the women would not let him finish. They grabbed up Hawk-Hobby by the arm, three on one side, three on the other, two behind him. They dragged him back to the mattress, now nothing but a flattened hide, and thrust him down.

  "Dream," the black-haired woman commanded.

  "Dream," they all cried as if with one voice.

  "What? Here? Now?"

  Their stone faces were his only answers, so he closed his eyes and called for a dream. Any dream.

  Of course no dream came.

  8. THE LONG WAIT

  THEY KEPT HIM ON THE HIDE FOR HOURS, taking turns watching him. It was a warm autumn day and the sun was blazing in an unclouded sky. Whenever he attempted to leave the hide—to get out of the sun or to relieve himself or simply to stand and stretch—the women made menacing noises and threatened him with long sticks. Then he recalled the stories he had heard about the wild women, stories Mag and Nell had told him when he had been a boy in Master Robin's house: how the wild women stole away human children and ate them.

  For the first time he was really afraid.

  So he tried once again to dream. Closing his eyes, he thought about pleasanter times with Master Robin or the happy days in Ambrosius' cart. But the more he tried to dream, the wider awake he remained.

  The women did not speak to him, nor with one another, while they were on guard. Their aptitude for silence was appalling.

  Very well, he thought. I will match you in this long wait. I will outlast you. It occurred to him that as long as they waited for him to dream, they would not be eating him.