the rutted road. Then, even as he was wondering whether to continue the chase or resume his journey, he saw the faint glimmer of glistening black feathers—just a quick flash before it disappeared into a hedge bank a few hundred paces down the trail. He hurried on.
The ground rose toward the ridge, and he eventually reached the top. Sweating and out of breath, he stumbled upon a game trail that led along the ridgetop. It was old and well established, overarched by the huge limbs of plane trees, elms, and oaks that formed a vault overhead and allowed only intermittent shafts of sunlight to strike down through the leaf canopy and illuminate the path. It was dark as a cellar, but since it was easier than pushing his way through the heavy underbrush, he decided to follow the run and soon realised just how quickly it allowed a man on foot to move about the forest.
The heat had been mounting steadily as the sun arced toward midday, and Aethelfrith was glad for the shade beneath the hanging boughs. He walked along, listening to the thrushes singing in the upper branches and, lower down, the click and chirrup of insects working the dead leaf matter that rotted along the trail. At any moment, he told himself, he would turn back—but the path was soft underfoot, so he continued.
After a time, the trail branched off; the left-hand side continued along the ridgetop, and the right-hand side descended the slope to a rocky hollow. Here the priest stopped to consider which path, if either, to take. The day was speeding from him, and he decided to resume his homeward journey. He turned around and started back, but he had not gone far when he heard voices: murmured only, light as thistledown on the dead-still air, there and gone again, and so faint as to be easily dismissed as the invention of his own imagining.
But years of living alone in his oratory with no company save his own inner musings had made his hearing keen. He held his breath and listened for the sound to come again. His vigilance was rewarded with another feather-soft murmur, followed by the unmistakable sound of laughter.
Frail as a wisp of cobweb adrift on the breeze, it nonetheless gave him a direction to follow. He took the right-hand trail leading down the back of the ridge. The path fell away steeply as it entered the hollow below, and Aethelfrith, his short legs unable to keep up with his bulk, plunged down the hill.
He entered the hollow in a rush, tripped over a root, and fell, landing with a mighty grunt at the feet of the great black phantom raven. He slowly raised his fearful gaze to see the ominous black head regarding him with malevolent curiosity.
The fantastic wings spread wide, and the thing swooped.
The priest rolled on his belly and tried to avoid the assault, but he was too slow, and he felt his arm seized in a steely grip as he squirmed on the ground. “God save me!” he cried.
“Shout louder,” hissed the creature. “God may hear you yet.”
“Let be!” he cried in English, wriggling like an eel to get free. “Let me go!”
“Do you want to kill him, or should I?”
Aethelfrith twisted his head around and saw a tall, brawny man step forward. He wore a long, hooded cloak into which were woven a multitude of small tatters of green cloth; twigs and branches and leaves of all kinds had also been attached to the curious garment. Regarding the priest with a frown, he drew a knife from his belt. “I’ll do it.”
“Wait a little,” spoke the raven with a human voice. “We’ll not kill him yet. Time enough for that later.” To the friar, he said, “You were at the ford. Did anyone else follow?”
Struggling in the creature’s unforgiving clutch, it took the priest a moment to realise that the thing had spoken to him.
Turning his eyes to his captor once more, he saw not the bone-thin shanks of a bird, but the well-booted feet and legs of a man: a man wearing a long cloak covered entirely with black feathers. The face staring down at him was an expressionless death’s head, but deep in the empty eye sockets, Aethelfrith caught the glimmer of a living eye.
“I ask for the last time,” the black-cloaked man said. “Did anyone follow you?”
“No, sire,” replied the priest. “I came alone. God have mercy, can we not talk this out?