“Yes, but later that night we found them counting the sceattas they’d stolen from their dead companions,” noted Atto sarcastically, “so I’m wondering if they didn’t just kill them and blame it on something else.”
“You think there’s no beast out there?” Hanso demanded.
“There’s a beast,” said Atto with that same cutting smirk, “but it’s as likely found in men’s hearts as stalking in the forest.”
“You’re a fool!” Hanso spat, but he kept an eye on Rage and did not attempt to brawl.
Some of the other men clearly agreed with this assessment of Atto’s character, but Atto had the good spear and a sarcastic tongue, enough to keep even the furious Hanso at bay. He had the pride of youth and the reckless heart of a young man who is sure of himself, whether or not he is wrong. He had gotten a woman pregnant, and sometimes that is enough to make a man feel that nothing can defeat him.
“It’s a guivre,” said Alain, noting how their gazes all leaped to him as though they had forgotten he was there. “A guivre will do you no harm as long as you do not injure it. Leave it be, and it will hunt only in the forest. Attack it, and you’ll find yourselves turned to stone.”
“You’re as crazy as he is!” Hanso spat again, his anger turned easily from the one he could not control to a new object. “Come!” he ordered his fellows. They were staring at Alain as though at the beast itself, and with grumbling and muttering they shouldered their tools and set off back the way they had come, kicking at debris, cursing the rain.
Atto lingered, studying the hounds. “Those things bite?”
“They do, if they’re provoked. They’ll defend themselves, that’s all. Otherwise they’re as mild as sheep.”
He snorted. “A good tale! Who are you?”
“I’m called Alain. I’m a traveler.”
“So you said. Where are you from?”
“Osna. That’s west, at the coast. It’s five or ten days’ walk from Osna to Lavas Holding. I’ve been on the road ten or fifteen days since I left Lavas Holding.”
“Never heard of it. What are you going to Autun for? To join the militia, like me? If you’ll wait until morning, me and Mara will walk with you. We know part of the way. Not that we’ve ever been there, you understand. Have you?”
“I’ve seen Autun, yes.”
“They say it’s got so many houses you can’t count them all. And a big wall, to hold them in. And a cathedral tower so tall that up at the top you can rake your fingers through the clouds. They say it’s a holy place, where the old emperor died, the Salian one. I can’t remember his name.”
“Taillefer.”
“That’s right! Are you a learned man? A frater, maybe?” He rubbed fingers through his own coarse stubble. “Nay, you’ve got a bit of a beard. You’d have to be clean shaven to be a churchman. Still.” He shrugged. “Bandits travel in wolf packs, and thieves skulk. So maybe you’re just what you say you are. A traveler. A pilgrim.”
The hounds had settled down to demolish the dregs of the carcass. Alain had a bag woven of reeds slung over one shoulder, and into this he placed some bones, still messy with bits of flesh and tough tendon strings.
“Too bad you didn’t get any of the meat,” said Atto. “We could have roasted it. Deer are hard to come by this spring. We’re all afeard to go into the forest, not knowing what we’ll find there. Can’t slaughter what livestock we have left, and even so we had a poor lambing season, no twins at all.”
“This beast. Has it killed your cattle and sheep?”
“It hasn’t come into our pasture and byre. Maybe it got those that wandered off. No one’s brave enough to track it to its lair.” He coughed out a laugh as he gestured toward the north. “And I won’t be the one to find out! There’s rough land that way. Deep forest. Wolves, they say. A lake, though I’ve not seen it, and a ravine. That’s where it hides.” He had thick lips, blue eyes, and a funny way of looking at other people, as if he didn’t want to like them. “So they say. They don’t really know. They just talk and talk and do nothing but complain about their bad fortune and how ill luck dogs the village and the frost still comes and the crops won’t grow and how it’ll be worse before it gets better.”
“Perhaps they’re right. Have you seen the sun since last autumn?”
The comment startled Atto. He glanced heavenward, but there was nothing to see except the canopy of branches and the leaden silver of the sky. “I’m not waiting around. I’m going to Autun, me and Mara. Things will be better there.”