Carack

Ch2 p1

Chapter 2   The Falcon’s Wing

Gerent stood inside the threshold of the inn looking down at his feet as the water drained from his hair. It ran into his eyes and dripped from the end of his nose onto the dark stone flags under his feet. He hung his arms out away from his sides as his T shirt stuck to him and had been beginning to rub under his arm pits. Water dripped off the end of every finger. Gerent realised that the room was quiet and sensed that he was being watched. He raised his head and saw a large motionless crowd of people were all looking at him. They were either standing leaning on the bar, draped around the fireplace or ranged around the room, seated at tables. There were pewter tankards frozen in the act of being raised from the bar top to mouths, forks full of food were paused midway between being transferred from plate to mouth and there was an uneasy silence.

‘Master Hugh!’ a familiar voice shouted with drunken delight from the midst of the crowd. Gerent tensed and scanned round for the expected assailant with the knife. Just as he had seen had happen in the game. But no one was near him, apart from the man behind him in the porch, who had hauled him into the building. Wampa pushed and pulled his way through the crowd as if he were swimming and stood beside Gerent facing the expectant audience. Waving and slopping a large brimming tankard in one hand he slapped the other down on Gerent’s sopping shoulder, which Wampa then gripped and patted.

‘See! You didn’t believe I did you? Well here he be, young Master Hugh! Just as the Master Madron said he’d be. What did I tell you eh? It has come true, this here be the Knight as is going to rid us of all evil!’ Wampa slurred in pride to the watching crowd. “And I gets to take him to the Master!’

‘It is just as well the lad wast able to find his own way here because with a guide as good as thee he’ll have to get to the castle on his own!’ A man’s deep voice from behind Gerent mocked Wampa who now looked a little abashed and dropped his hand from Gerent’s shoulder.

‘Now then Master Hugh it was not my fault the horse bolted in the storm and Jemmer he said as how there was no point in going after you as there was no where else for you to go but this way. I’d be getting wet for nothing if I’d have gone back for you.’

‘Twas lucky for thee then, me thinks that thy horse was so familiar with the ‘Wing’ that it decided to stop here. But this banter does the boy no good, he is drenched and should be dried before he ails.’ The man then raised his voiced and shouted over the heads of the men at the bar. ‘Minier! Minier! Fetch thou this lad a cloth to dry with before he doth flood us all out with the water that cometh from him and make way at the fire there!’

Gerent, who was now shivering, saw a woman emerge from the crowd and come toward him with a large towel in her hands. He took it gratefully and began to dry his hair. He took off his T shirt and rubbed himself vigorously with the towel, to bring the circulation back to his body.

‘Minier, have you got a few bits the young master could put on, the master will see you right,’ Wampa asked the woman. She nodded and theaded her way back through the crowd.

The occupants of the inn turned back to their ale or food and resumed their noise as they lost interest in Gerent.  Minier returned with a white smock shirt and leggings such as Wampa wore. She cleared two seats by the fire of their occupants. Gerent was placed in one of the comfy chairs. He bent forward and with difficulty, as his fingers were cold and his laces swollen with water, removed his saturated trainers and carelessly threw to the floor. Wampa placed them upside down in the fender in front of the fire just as Gerent had seen his mother do at home. Wampa then hung the dripping T shirt up on the mantelpiece to dry. He lodging it in place with a couple of chunky wood candle sticks. The after hovering by Gerent’s side trying to look important he drifted off to fetch hot food and a drink of ale for Gerent.

The man from the doorway, who had hauled Gerent into the inn, sat down in the empty chair opposite Gerent and leaned in towards him.

‘Dost thou feel better my lord?’ he enquired in a gentle tone.

‘Thank you,’ Gerent smiled. ‘If you mean me, I am feeling much better, but I am no one’s lord.’

‘Indeed, art thou not he who appeared on the high hill, as is foretold in this land?’

‘There you have me,’ said Gerent with tiredness in his voice. ‘I did wake up on the hill, but I don’t know anything about its being foretold. I’m just a boy, not a lord, nor a knight, nor any other title people in this place care to give me. I’m just a boy and I want to go home. I want it all to make sense and I need Hugh, he’ll make it make sense to me.’ The man leaned in closer still.

‘Art thou not - Hugh?’ There was something odd in the tone of his lowered voice as he spoke.

‘No,’ replied Gerent in a similar whisper. ‘I am Gerent, Hugh’s twin brother.’ The man threw himself back in the chair and laughed for a few minutes. Then he grew serious and looked around as if to judge who was near and could hear. He leant toward Gerent again.

‘Thou must not tell anyone of this, it may be our one hope. Let no one, apart from the mage, Sancret, know thou art not Hugh, but especially not Madron.’ The man stopped as he saw Wampa approach with a platter full of steaming roast potatoes and hunks of sizzling beef. Minier, carrying a tankard of foaming ale, dragged a table away from the four men in the window seat; who just managed to grab their tankards from it as she did so, and placed the table in front of Gerent. Wampa put the meal on the table, it smelt wonderful, like the best Sunday roast he had ever had.

‘See Master like I told you, hansome grub. Get that down you and you’ll be as right as nine tellars!’ Wampa retired to the bar and ravenous Gerent ate the meal. He found it awkward to just have a knife to eat with but the food was delicious. As he ate, he gazed around him at his surroundings and the man who sat opposite him, drinking ale as he watched Gerent eat.