A Wlk in Wolf Wood, Page 3

  Then after a while, because of that same unbroken stillness, they stopped talking, and sat rather close to one another for comfort, listening for the sound of the returning car.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  As soon as the horn woke the children, they knew what it was, though neither of them had ever heard a hunting horn before. The sound, high and silver and hollow as an echo, pierced the blue morning air and wound on over the hillsides and back into the valleys like the call of a herald wind.

  They sat up in their nest of fern, still half asleep and stiff from the damps of dew, and, for a few bewildering moments while they rubbed the sleep from their eyes, not remembering anything about what had happened or where they were.

  Then it all came back. The walk through the wood, the cottage, the wolf-like beast, the disappearance of their father and mother and the car...

  They jumped to their feet. Sure enough, it was morning. The sun was not yet up, but light was growing, sparkling back from the wet ferns, and drawing the dew upwards in curls of mist.

  And the car had not come back for them.

  They were looking about them, wordlessly, in dismay, when they heard the horn again. This time it sounded much nearer. With it, apparently approaching fast along the road from the direction of St. Johann, came the flurry and thunder of galloping hoofs. A lot of them. A troop. The air was suddenly full of the music of bridles, and the sounds of shouting and laughter and view-hallooing, and the baying of hounds.

  "A hunt!" cried John, seizing Margaret's hand. "Come on! There may be someone–"

  He didn't finish. As they began to run up towards the road, something fled down and past them, and vanished into the forest. A wolf, or a creature like a wolf. They caught a glimpse of the wild, golden eyes, the grey pelt tagged with mud and damp, the long muzzle flecked with froth, and the lolling tongue. Then the creature was gone, and the hunt was almost on them.

  The hounds first, a score of big dogs, as shaggy as the wolf itself, eyes and ears eager, for wolfhounds hunt by sight and not by scent.

  Where the track forked down from the road the pack faltered, paused, broke up and cast around, milling about among the trees at the forest's edge. There may have been danger to the children, but luckily there was no time to find out.

  As John and Margaret scrambled up onto the tree stump and waved, the first of the riders was there, cantering down among the hounds, to whip them back to the road. A dozen or so others checked their mounts on the road, waiting, while another man rode straight down the track and drew his big bay up with a slither of hoofs, just beside the children.

  Margaret thought that he regarded them with a good deal of curiosity, but all he did was cry out: "Which way?" And, unbelievingly, she saw that his hand had gone to a pouch at his belt and pulled out a silver coin.

  Beside her, she felt John draw breath to answer, but, without quite knowing why, she found herself leaning across him and pointing, not down towards the forest, where the wolf had gone, but up along the slope above the road, where the forest climbed away towards the hill-top.

  "There! He went up there! Only a minute ago! Hurry!"

  The man flicked the coin to her, wheeled his horse, and cantered back to the road. Whips cracked, men shouted, a woman's voice called something shrill and excited, and the hunt was off, the thunder of hoofs shaking the hillside.

  The children got slowly down from the tree stump, and brushed the fern and grass from their clothes. Then, still without speaking, they found the rest of the chocolate and began to eat it. This time it did not lift their spirits quite as it should have done. Munching it, they started up the track to the roadway. Then stopped where the signpost had stood. There was no signpost. They looked, without surprise, at the muddied roadway, marked and pitted by the horses' hoofs. There was no sign of the familiar tarmacadam road at all; no parking area; no telegraph poles and wires; only a narrow dirt road, like a farm track, beaten flat by hoofs.

  "Of course, it's a dream," said Margaret. The thought seemed to cheer her. Dreams were things that couldn't harm you, and that came to an end.

  "Of course." John chewed chocolate for a minute, thinking hard. "I suppose you noticed how those people were dressed?"

  "Yes. Like Richard the Second, when the school party saw it at Stratford."

  "Mm." John swallowed chocolate. "Or like the people in that story I was reading, about the Hundred Years' War. I was telling you about it; it was pretty exciting. That's what's happened. I've been reading too much, so I'm having this dream."

  "Well, so am I," said Margaret, rather sharply.

  "It's my dream, and you're a part of it."

  "I feel as if it's my dream, and you're a part of it."

  "I–I suppose it must be a dream?" faltered Margaret.

  "What else? There was a good tarmac road here yesterday, and it's gone. And look, so has the note I left for Daddy! The chocolate's the only thing– Hey, Meg!"

  "What?"

  "That coin he threw you, just as if he was a duke or something, and you were a poor peasant girl... you put it in your pocket. Let's see."

  She pulled it out, and they looked at it. It was familiar. There was the head of the monarch, crowned. Above it was his name: OTHO Dux.

  "Just like the medallion!" exclaimed Margaret.

  "Except that the man's older," said John.

  "And look, it says OTHO Dux this time. Duke, I suppose? Well, that's heads. Now for tails." He turned the coin over.

  Margaret peered over his shoulder. "It's different. There was that Latin word on the other. 'Faithful,' you said it meant. This has just got a bird or something. What is it, John, an eagle?"

  "Something like that. But look, it's got a date."

  They looked at the date in silence: 1342.

  "And the coin's new," said John at length.

  "So was the medallion."

  "Gold always looks new. Anyway, the medallion's got to be older than this. The man–Duke Otho–was young then, and maybe he wasn't Duke yet, either. But you can bet he is now. This coin's hardly been used. Well, it goes with the clothes, doesn't it? And the horses, with all the coloured harness, and bells, and those huge wide stirrups, and the awful spurs."

  "And the lady. Did you see her? Sidesaddle, in green velvet, with a cloak."

  "Here," he said, "put it away again. Pity it's just a dream coin, it's probably valuable. Thirteen forty-two... I wish I could remember any history at all! It's the Middle Ages, that's all I know. And we're still in the same country as we were last night, and it does look pretty much the same–"

  "Except for the road, and the telegraph poles–"

  "And the signpost, and look, there are lots more trees, and there's more forest right down into the valley instead of fields, and–"

  "The castle!" cried Margaret. It was hidden from where they stood by a thicket of bushes.

  "Don't you remember? When we went round it with Daddy they said it was fourteenth century–oh, fourteenth. Then that's no good."

  "Yes, it is. Thirteen forty-two is fourteenth century, same as 1980 is twentieth. What do you bet it's still there, and brand-new, with all flags flying? Come on!"

  They ran back to the tree stump. There below them, between the tree trunks, was the castle on its hill, walls and towers and moat and bridge, with the river running a little way beyond. But it was no brand-new fourteenth-century castle. It was still a ruin, and the moat was still dry.

  For all that, there were differences. The road leading to the bridge, where Daddy had driven them yesterday, was a mere track, no wider than the one where they stood. The bridge, even, was broken; halfway across the reeds and mud of the moat it had collapsed into a welter of rotten timber. There was no sign of the hut where they had bought tickets; no sign of the cottages beside the meadow where they had parked the car.

  They stared, at the scene in the silence of dismay. At length John put it into words. "No castle, no car park. No cottages, and the new bridge is broken. Looks as if it's not the Midd
le Ages after all! And yet it's not our own century... The whole thing's crazy!"

  "Yes, and another thing," said Margaret slowly. "That man who asked which way the wolf had gone. He wasn't speaking German, was he? And I certainly can't! But we are still in the same place. It must still be Germany, even if it's a different century. But it did sound like English to me, and I could understand what the other people were saying to each other, too. It was English, wasn't it? But why?"

  "Dream language, that's why!" said John firmly though he understood no more than his sister. "Ever had a dream about landing on a strange planet, or talking to animals, or something? I'll bet if you dreamed about ancient Rome they'd be talking English, too! The main thing is, we can talk to them."

  "Well, all right, but what do we do now?"

  "It doesn't seem to matter much," said John, with a bravado he didn't really feel, "since it's only a dream. But one thing's for sure, no car's ever coming down that beastly little road! What's more, we don't even know if St. Johann's still there so it's no good starting to walk. And dream or no dream, I'm hungry. At least we've got some money to buy food with, and we'll know how to ask for it. So there's only one thing we can do that makes sense."

  "Go back to the cottage, and ask the man to help us?"

  "That's it. If it's there."

  Margaret gasped, then said firmly: "It'll be there. The castle's still there, after all, even if it doesn't fit into one world or the other. And when we saw the cottage yesterday it did look as if it had been there, just the same, for hundreds of years."

  "Yesterday?" said John.

  She caught her breath again. "You mean that was a dream, too? Before we went to sleep? But I remember it quite distinctly, don't you?"

  "If we're both still asleep on the rug beside Daddy, then it was a dream, and the wolf and everything. And if we're dreaming, then we can't come to harm, can we? We might as well pass the time somehow! And I really am hungry. There must be something to eat in that cottage, whether he's there or not."

  "If he is, we can tell him where the medallion went."

  "And give him back his knife and stick," said John. "We've still got those, so I'll bet the cottage is still there. Yesterday must have been part of the same dream."

  "So was the wolf," said Margaret. "Oh, yes, it's the same dream. He'll be there, and the wolf will be somewhere, too. It went that way."

  There was a pause. "I don't see what else to do," said John at length. "Wait here for the hunt to come back?"

  "Having found that I sent them the wrong way? Not likely! Let's go to the cottage. I liked the weeping man better than those people on horseback, somehow. Here, do you want the knife this time?"

  But John kept to his stick. They started down the track. The sound of the hunt had long since gone. The forest was as silent as before. It was not as frightening as it had been last night in the dusk, but they hurried, keeping rather close together, and watching all the time for movement among the crowding columns of the trees.

  "Why did you send them the wrong way?" asked John.

  "Why do you think?"

  "It was a wolf, you know."

  "So what?" retorted Margaret. "If it was the same wolf, and I'm sure it was, then it hadn't hurt us. And did you see its eyes?"

  John said nothing. He had seen its eyes. The children walked on in silence after that, each wondering what they would do if the cottage was not there, each convincing themselves that they were dreaming, because this was the only comfort and safeguard they could think of in a rather scary situation. Each, in consequence, was sure that the other was only a person in a dream, and therefore unreal, and unlikely to be of help if any danger came. It was not a comforting idea. It lasted them all the way to the cottage.

  For the cottage, after all, was there. And not, as Margaret half expected, newly built and with its garden tidy and well planted; like the castle, it looked pretty well the same as it had done yesterday. This time they did not trouble to knock at the front door. They walked round to the back, which they had left open in their hasty flight.

  It was shut.

  Three seconds later both children were at the window, peering cautiously into the room. This was just the same as yesterday, but for one thing. The tumbled clothes had gone from the bed, and were flung over a chair. In the bed was a man, asleep. He was lying facing the window, and they could see him clearly. It was the weeping man of Wolf Wood.

  He opened his eyes, and saw them.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Half an hour later the children were sitting at the table in the cottage living room, finishing a strange but satisfying breakfast. The bread was dark and coarse, and rather dry, and there was no butter, but there was a strong, tangy piece of honeycomb on a wooden dish, and a bowl of the most delicious wild strawberries.

  The fire was burning merrily, and the room looked as different from yesterday as a new nest does from a last year's one. Their host, shaved and dressed, sat on a settle near the fire. He would not take breakfast, but had drawn a cup of ale from a barrel in the comer. The children had tumblers (which their host called goblets) of some strong, sweet drink tasting rather like honey.

  To their relief, the "dream language" worked here, too. At first, when the sleeping man had opened his eyes and seen them peering in at him through the window, they had been nervous, and half inclined to run away yet again.

  But instead of looking annoyed at being spied on, he had seemed glad to see them. He waved to them to stay where they were, and in a moment or two came quickly out of the cottage, wrapped in his grey cloak, and, before they had time to say much more than a shy "Good morning," he had invited them in and found food for them, "and fire to dry your clothes, for there is danger," he said gently, "in the damps of the nighttime forest."

  So they ate and drank while he drew water from the well outside, and went into the inner room to wash and dress himself. Then, as he sat with his ale, they told him their story, which, said John, hesitating, was "only a dream, really. That is, if you don't mind being just someone in someone's dream? Because it must be a dream, Mummy and Daddy vanishing like that, and the road and the signpost, and then all this is so queer, this place, and–" He stopped. He had been going to say "your clothes, and the way you talk," but that sounded rude, so he finished, a bit lamely, "those people who were hunting the wolf."

  "I do not disdain to be part of your dream,"said the man. "In fact, in a moment I shall tell you why I am glad of it. But part, at least, of your tale is no dream to me. When I first saw you, out there by the window, you were bearing my knotted staff, and the little maid, Margaret, had–if I mistook it or not–my own hunting knife in her hand."

  Margaret felt herself blushing. She had put the knife down quickly on the table as she followed her host into the cottage, and she had seen John restoring the stick to its place with the same secretive haste. "Yes, I had," she confessed. "But after we'd seen the wolf we were scared of going back through the wood without any sort of weapon, so we borrowed them. We really did mean to bring them back. We would have come down again with Daddy, and brought them. In any case we'd have had to come back to tell you where we found the amulet, and how we'd thrown it away again, at the wolf."

  For that it was an amulet, and not merely a medallion, their host had explained to them almost straight away. One of the first things they had noticed, when he came back, fully dressed, from the inner room, was that he had the gold chain and amulet round his neck. He had found it, he said briefly, among the brambles. Its value to him, he told them, was as a talisman, or amulet against evil; he said nothing about its being gold, though the children were now convinced that it was. When they told him how they had found it beside the fallen tree, he merely thanked them for bringing it to the cottage, nor did he seem angry that John had thrown it away again at the wolf.

  Now, as Margaret spoke, he smiled. It was amazing how the smile changed him. When they had first seen his face, distorted as it had been by grief, it had still been a good face, a fa
ce with, even, something noble about it in the strongly marked brows and the pleasant mouth and the longish, high-bridged nose. Now, as he smiled at them, the lines of grief still showed, and the impression that something terrible had been endured in the recent past, but his eyes were kind, and about him there was a sort of eagerness and hope that had surely not been there before.

  "I never doubted you, little maiden. You were welcome to anything that my poor cottage could afford you. I am only sorry that the wolf frightened you so. Yet, you tell me, you turned the Duke's hunt away from his trail, and sent them coursing away through the upper forest. Why did you do that?"

  "Because I hate hunts," said Margaret. "And the wolf hadn't hurt us. In fact we both thought he was scared of us himself. Have you seen him? Is he really a wolf? Is he tame?"

  The man shook his head. "No. He is wild indeed, a fierce wolf of the forest–but only in darkness. When you saw him first, at the cottage door, the darkness had barely begun to fall. It was the half-light, the owl-light, when the hour hangs, as they say, between the wolf and the dog."

  The children looked at him curiously. "What do you mean?" asked John.

  "He was still tame enough–dog enough–to be afraid of hurting you. But he knew that, in a few minutes' time, when darkness came fully, he would not be able to help himself, and would attack you. So he fled, even before you picked up the amulet to throw at him."

  "I see. I thought the amulet must be magic, or something. I couldn't imagine a real wolf running away from it otherwise."

  "Perhaps it is. I told you that I held it as a talisman against evil."

  John finished his last slice of bread, drained his goblet, and wiped his mouth. He had noticed that their host wiped his mouth, very neatly, with the back of his hand, so apparently it was the thing to do. "You said you were going to tell us about that. How did you find it?"