Walk the Wild With Me - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Rachel Atwood is the author of Walk the Wild with Me. She grew up enchanted with British History. Now she writes historical fiction with enchantments. Every time she visits the British Isles, she basks in the shadows of standing stones and glories in ancient crypts while drinking in the lush accents of the people she meets. She thinks driving on the left is natural and roundabouts are efficient as well as aesthetically pleasing.

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One

Anno Domini 1199,

the tenth year of King Richard's reign, late winter

ather Tuck threw back his cowl, baring his tonsured head to the morning breeze, and stretched his legs into long, mile-eating strides. With each new step he breathed deeply of the fresh air. For a moment, he wished he'd worn his wool shirt beneath his robe instead of spring linen. He'd huddled near the fire too often over the winter; he needed to stretch all his senses again, including bringing fresh cool air into his lungs instead of warm but stale interiors.

The sun peeked through thin clouds in a rare effort to bring spring life to the land. He sniffed and found traces of new greenery trying to burst forth on the roadside verge. The equinox was not far away.

Very soon the landowners would direct their freeholders and serfs to begin plowing.

In the meantime, he could escape the musty and crowded Benedictine abbey near Locksley Downs, outside Nottingham. The abbot had been ill and dying for months, leaving Tuck to handle the details of keeping the abbey running and following the Order as laid down by their patron saint.

The twenty monks, three priests, and ten orphan boys demanded his attention continuously. He had grown weary of tiny details and confinement. Escape to the land was finally his to claim. Outlying villages needed him to say funeral masses for those who had died over the winter and perform marriages for couples who could not wait for spring to wed as their first child would pop out before then. Perhaps he could also share the joy of baptizing babies born a bit early. He loved performing that sacrament more than any other.

But he feared he'd have to send more spirits beyond the grave than welcome new souls into the Church. The winter had not been overly harsh, but outlaws roamed at will. If only King Richard would come home and set this kingdom in order before finding another war to fight on the continent.

A nearly forgotten sensation tickled the back of his neck.

"Elena?" he whispered. "I put you back into your niche decades ago, on the night before I took my novitiate vows."

You are needed in Withybeck. Now. One of ours is in peril.

And then his head grew numb as the little goddess withdrew.

Withybeck. The village had grown up beside the Withy, a stream barely big enough to be classified as a river. Its importance lay in the drop in elevation, marked by a half mile of rapids. A century ago an enterprising builder had erected a mill; the wheel turned the grinding stones by the force of the flowing water. Even in high summer when the water levels lessened, the wheel turned raw grain into flour.

Tuck turned his steps south by southwest, cutting across fallow fields and jumping creeks and downed trees with the agility of a much younger man.

One of our own. Elena meant a child of mixed-blood from human and forest creature. Not many such children had been born in the last forty years. Elena must be getting desperate to find one to carry her when the moons of human time and faery time aligned once more on Midsummer's Night Eve.

At the crossroad, he turned his steps due south. Shadows from overhanging trees made the way look forgotten and ill-used. But the green hump in the center of the narrow road showed signs of recent trampling by many heavy feet.

Within a few steps the stink of wet smoke gagged him.

He choked back tears of despair while panic pumped speed into his limbs.

The reek grew stronger. His eyes burned from the pall that overlay his path.

"Heavenly Father, bless those who are innocent victims of whatever tragedy has visited them," he murmured. He didn't have time to pull his prayer beads from his inside sleeve pocket, so he called up the image of his green glass beads with silver filigree decade pieces and ran the texture of them through his memory.

By the time he saw the remnants of burned thatch through the thinning trees, he feared the worst. Wattle-and-daub house walls leaned inward, doors sagging upon broken or burned leather hinges. Chickens, goats, and sheep lay senselessly slaughtered in random clusters upon the green. Mutilated bodies of men, women, and children sprawled in awkward attitudes of flight cut off by arrows and axes.

The odor of spilled blood grabbed at his throat.

He had to stop and clutch his knees as he dragged in tainted air to replenish his laboring lungs. Before he'd managed to control his ragged breathing, he crossed himself and spoke prayers for the dead by rote, his mind too paralyzed by the horror of the massacre to remember what he said.

"NO!" A primal scream ripped from his body, pulling all of his strength with it. His knees wobbled, and he dropped to the ground, not in prayer. Not in awe or gratitude.

You need to hurry!

In that moment a whimper of distress overcame the sound of his heart pounding in his ears. Such a faint sound. He wasn't certain it hadn't come from his own throat.

One of ours.

There! It came again. Not a moan of pain, but an anguished sob. He followed the sound to his left, the north end of the little village, away from the ransacked storehouse and the burned cottages.

Tuck crawled to the edge of the fouled well and used it as a brace to haul himself to his feet. His knees held, and his back uncramped. Stiff and uncertain, careful not to step on any of the dead bodies, he followed the sound.

"Mama!" A toddler's cry for the first person it could think of for help.

"I'm coming," Tuck said quietly, careful not to alarm the only survivor. "Easy, child. I'm coming."

A heap of rubble blocked the path out of the village. The sodden thatch smoked. An overhanging oak tree had kept the soaking winter rains from drying out the bundled sheaves. And so the roof had been saved.

"Mama!" the toddler insisted.

Tuck threw off the mat of the house wall, the crumbling clay held together by woven wicker, split and disintegrated where it landed. There, in a pocket of space beside the fire ring sat a naked child. Tear streaks amongst the smoke and dirt that smudged its face told a story of its own.

The dead body of a woman stretched out beside the child, one arm reaching toward him. An ax protruded from her back. Bone and blood and guts lay exposed along her spine.

"Oh, you poor baby," Tuck knelt beside the boy, heedless of the broken bits of house that tore at his thick woolen robe. Without giving the child a chance to shy away from a stranger, he gathered him into his arms, rose to his feet, and backed away. Instinctively, he rubbed the boy child's back as he pressed the sorrowful face against his shoulder.

His gut clenched in sorrow and wonder. Tuck clutched the boy, digging his fingers into soft flesh.

"There, there, baby. Let's get you some clothes, and food, and water."

"No baby. Nick!" the child insisted, pounding his fist into Tuck, then with a trembling chin he buried his face into Tuck's shoulder again. His back rippled in a convulsive sob. "Mama?"

"Nick you be, then." Tuck fished a bit of bread from the scrip at his waist.

The boy gnawed at it hungrily. "Mama." Nick reached back toward the crumbling remnants of his home. His big leaf-green eyes spilled tears.

"Your mama can't come, Nick." Tuck choked back his own tears. "You'll have to...