Urbis

The cry which accompanied the springing of the trap - and brought Crispin to sudden wakefulness and to his feet - was not animal but human. Seizing his crossbow, he approached the clearing, but stopped short to observe.

There were two men in the clearing, the one suspended upside down by his ankle, the other standing by him, reaching up with a knife, about to cut the cord. Crispin felt an irritation: one should never cut a cord if it could be avoided.

He raised his crossbow, trusting that in the dark the two newcomers would fail to observe that it was not loaded, and stepped into the clearing. “Put away your knife, sir,” he ordered.

“Crispin!” The man standing before him spun round in alarm, and Crispin found himself face to face with Oswald, Vale’s potter.

Before Crispin could respond, there came a loud creaking sound, and the branch, which Crispin had not intended should take the weight of a man, snapped and fell, depositing its load in an untidy heap on the grass.

“Mattie!” the young potter cried in alarm, dropping to his knees beside the fallen man.

Crispin approached, and looked into the face of one of the hunters who had been with him on the last trip. He bent and untied the noose around Mattie’s ankle, while the hunter sat groaning and rubbing the back of his head.

“Well,” said Crispin cheerily, “this is a surprise.” He untied the wooden trigger that had released the snare, then the broken branch, and began coiling the rope again neatly so that it would be ready when next required. “Have you two decided, belatedly, to join me on my journey?”

Mattie and Oswald nervously exchanged glances, and Crispin saw at once that that was the furthest thing from their minds.

There was an uncomfortable silence. Oswald was the first to break it. “N-no, Crispin,” he stammered, “th-that’s not it at all.”

The dull glint of the knives on the two men’s belts caught Crispin’s eye, and suddenly he understood.

He stood up sharply, his hand now resting lightly on the haft of his own knife. “To what, then, do I owe this visit?” Again, the guilty looks, the exchange of glances. He stood over them, blocking off all avenues of flight. “The truth!” he demanded.

“We had no choice,” Mattie blurted, chasing an errant lock of hair from his eyes with the back of his hand. “We were commanded by Master Torfinn...”

“...To come here and kill me,” Crispin softly completed his fellow-villager’s sentence. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

He fixed first Mattie then Oswald with his gaze. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes!” declared Oswald.

“Did Master Torfinn give any indication as to why he wanted me killed? It is not, so far as I am aware, his usual practice to go round killing his people.”

“All he told us,” Mattie said, “was that if our lives were to continue as we had always known them, ours and those of all our people, it was essential - and he repeated the word several times - that you should be killed.”

“I see,” said Crispin coldly. “And does anyone else know of this?”

“Apart from the elders, none,” said Oswald. “We were made to pledge that we would not breathe a word of it.”

Crispin was silent for a moment, summing up the situation in his mind. “I hold no ill will against you,” he said quietly. “Master Torfinn’s word is law. There is much here that I fail to understand, though I hope that I shall understand it all before I am finished. There is one thing that I am quite sure of, however. Clearly Master Torfinn wishes to keep all this a secret, for whatever reason. And I believe he will use all his powers to keep this secret. I am certain that when you return to Vale, whether you have been successful or not, he will silence you permanently. Leave here now, but I advise you with all my heart not to return to Vale. Go and start a new life in some other village, as far removed from Vale, and Master Torfinn’s influence, as possible.”

“Crispin,” said Mattie slowly. “All this has happened since your hunting trip. When you killed the strangers. Why does Master Torfinn now wish for you to die... and us? Have you brought some dreadful curse upon us?”

Crispin was thoughtful. “I hope not. I do hope not. But the fact remains that the affairs of Torfinn, myself and Vale are no longer your affairs. Go now.”

He brooked no contradiction, but bade them farewell, and stood watching as they began lumbering off through the forest. Long after they had vanished into the night, and even after the sound of their footfalls and the low murmuring of their voices had been swallowed by the whispering of the swaying treetops, he remained standing, wondering what dark secret Torfinn was nursing.

He awoke with a shudder and looked around. It was shortly after sunrise, but there was no sun to be seen. Everything was grey and shadowy, enveloped in mountain mist, and it was raining. He got up, brushed leaf mould from his cloak, and set off again, feeling tired and lonely and cold, and watching disconsolately the raindrops dripping from the brim of his hat as he walked.

He came to a place where a glacial meltwater stream had gradually carved for itself a deep cutting through which it raced noisily, and across which Crispin knew he could never jump. With relief he spotted a tree trunk spanning the gap, a few yards to his left. He looked at it for a moment, then climbed onto it and walked cautiously across to the other side, jumped to the ground and continued on his way.

As he climbed steadily upward, the oaks and beeches gave way to pines, and these gradually thinned out. He found himself climbing more than walking, scrambling over or through jumbled boulders, in between which grew plentiful blueberry bushes, though it was too early in the year, Crispin noted regretfully, for them to bear fruit.

And then, in late morning, he found himself facing an impassable barrier. He was staring down into a gorge, some twenty metres from edge to edge. White water crashed and rumbled at the base of sheer, vertiginous cliffs. He looked upstream and down, but could see no indication of where the gorge might begin or end. He sat down, dangling his legs over the precipice, and buried his face in his hands.

There was nothing to do but to follow the river downstream - that seemed a more promising possibility than upstream - until he found somewhere where he could get across.

Glumly he got to his feet and stooped to pick up his knapsack, his hat and his crossbow. He looked at it, the tool of his trade. It had led him to this pass, which was rapidly turning into an impasse. And then an idea struck him. He saw how this same tool might be used to continue his quest.

He checked himself immediately. His idea was so absurdly dangerous that he wondered if he were going mad. He scratched in his beard and peered over the brink at the rapids far below. He was not a man who risked his life without a second thought, his sense of self-preservation was too strong. But in moments he was preparing for a gamble which, if it failed, would bring sudden and certain death.

He unravelled one end of the rope and tied some strands to a crossbow bolt. He neatly plaited the remaining strands together and wound them into a knot. The rest of the rope he placed on the ground, and put his foot on the end. He tensioned the crossbow, then placed the bolt into it. Scanning the further lip of the gorge, which was slightly below the level of that on which he was standing, he selected a tree which would suit his purposes, a mountain ash which stood a metre or more back from the brink and looked as if it was well rooted. He needed a tree with a trunk that was strong enough to withstand the impact of the bolt, and yet slender enough for the bolt to pass through it entirely.

He took aim on the bole of the tree. With gentle, unhurried pressure he squeezed the trigger.

The bolt flew across the chasm, trailing the rope like a pennant, and struck the tree with a healthy thud.

Crispin looked at the ground and saw he had precious little slack to play with. Picking up the end of the rope, he looped it round his hips and leaned backwards, putting all his weight onto it. It held.

He lashed the free end of the rope around the largest tree available and secured it with a knot on which his life would depend. Then he stowed his hat into his knapsack and put that on his back. Shouldering his crossbow, he sat down again on the brink of the abyss, with the rope between his feet, and paused for a minute, testing his grip. The rope was already beginning to feel damp from the continuing drizzle.

Taking a deep breath, he hooked his feet over the rope, took a tight grip, and launched himself cautiously into space. The rope instantly sagged, and his stomach heaved, but it held, and little by little he edged forwards, looking up at the featureless grey sky and welcoming the soft rain that cooled his face. He glanced every few moments along the rope towards his destination, which seemed so much further now than when he had viewed it from the safety of solid ground. His ears were filled with the constant rushing of the water beneath him, and it was a struggle to remain calm. Hand over hand, he edged along the rope, resisting all temptation to quicken his pace, for that way, he knew, lay a fast plunge to his doom.

The rope felt increasingly wet, and then he saw the blood seeping between his fingers. He summoned every ounce of remaining strength into his tiring arms, clenching his teeth as his shoulders felt as if they would give way, and continued the same steady rhythm, watching with relief as the mountain ash edged closer. Finally his feet touched its trunk and he cautiously let his right leg drop, sighing with relief as he felt the ground under his foot. He gently let the other leg drop and pulled himself upright along the rope. He threw his arms around the tree like a long lost friend and clasped it for a moment while he drew breath.