Crusaders 2 4/7
Previous
Chapter 3
Strange Bedfellows
Coventina pulled a cup of fair water out of the air and handed it to Samuel as she explained what she knew of the demons that were outside. Some were of types she had never seen before. “But they were not simply drawn here, as ye suppose,” she continued. “’Tis true they seek vengeance for Azazel’s death, and ’tis true they chose this place because of the Northmen’s spell. Yet they came not all of their own will. The demon that now has gone among the monks is their master, one of Azazel’s children. He came here alone, seeking a likely place from which to besiege Rievaulx. Once he found the place to his liking and took the monk, he summoned the others. Banish him, and ye shall banish all the rest.”
“Would it were so simple,” Dean grumbled when Samuel had translated. “Rievaulx is two miles hence, and the devils stand in our way.”
“How if ye drive them out of the town? They are no army; they shall scatter, and fewer shall stand ’twixt here and there.”
“How, though? We cannot sow the ground with salt, nor yet with iron, not if aught shall grow hereafter. Nor can we hallow it as if it were a church or even a churchyard.”
She looked curiously at the flasks of holy water Samuel had brought.
Samuel blinked. “Flood the grange?”
When he had repeated himself in Latin, she shrugged. “Not deep enough to do damage. Just enough to make the demons run.”
While Dean considered the idea, Samuel became aware that the ghosts were doing... aught. He could not tell what, but the sense of fear began to lessen.
“You can do that?” Dean asked. “Take a flask of water and make it overrun the town?”
Coventina shrugged again. “I have made small springs flood larger plains.”
“Right, supposing this works. We still need some way to break the bond on Baduhenna and Váli.”
“What is it ye wish to free? The gods or the humans?”
“The humans, of course.”
“Have ye any care for those gods’ fate?”
Dean and Samuel looked at each other once that question was Englished. “They drink the blood of men and feast upon the slain,” said Samuel.
“Like Badb Catha?”
“Like but unlike-not the battle-slain, but rather men slain in sacrifice. And if there be none to offer sacrifice....”
“Ere long they shall take it for themselves,” Dean concluded, recalling as Samuel did the time they had had to save John from Arculus, the Roman god of chests and strongboxes. Without worshippers, Arculus had gone mad and built a cursed chest that seemed to hold great treasure but in sooth would trap the bearer until the god came to take his tribute of blood. John had sought to destroy the chest but was instead snared by it through pure mischance. Dean and Samuel had had no recourse but to kill Arculus.
Coventina shifted anxiously. “As I have said-”
Dean waved her off without waiting for Samuel to translate. “Had you taken life ere now in wanhope, we should have heard of it.”
Samuel translated that and added, “Wit you what kills the Northmen’s gods?”
“Wooden stakes, in most cases,” she replied. “Evergreen is best-”
She was interrupted by the sounds of shouting and of branches crashing out of the holly tree that stood near the house. Dean and Coventina both looked sorely confused, but Samuel understood. The ghosts had heard and knew at last how to gain their freedom. When the crashing had stopped, the shouting increased, now joined by the howls of demons.
“Dean, the door,” Samuel said.
Sword in hand, Dean ran to the door and reached it just as someone knocked. Samuel nodded, and Dean opened just in time for the shade of a woman to throw four stout holly branches through, wave, and vanish. Then an acheri laughed, and Dean slammed the door to again and barred it.
“This,” quoth he, picking up the branches, “must be the maddest hunt I have ever been on.”
Coventina needed no translation to laugh at his tone.
Because Dean now had stakes to carve-two for each brother, as seemed the ghosts’ intent, lest mischance befall-Coventina set herself to mind the fire and cook the meals. Dean refused to let her tend to Samuel’s wounds, but sooth to say, Samuel was feeling well enough that he needed little help in moving about when he was not sleeping and could spare Dean’s constant care. He felt well enough, too, to ask the goddess to make the soup with fowl or fish. And much to both brothers’ surprise, she made cock-a-leekie, which had also been one of Mary’s favorites.
“How came you to know this dish?” Samuel asked her.
She smiled. “On a time, I had a shrine some leagues north, by Hadrian’s Wall. Some converse I had with the Picts and their gods.”
Dean picked up enough words to lean forward ere Samuel could translate. “Hadrian’s Wall. Of course. I have heard of a place there-at Carrawburgh, Coventina’s Well. ’Tis a shrine built about a spring.”
It took some doing for Samuel to recall the Roman name of the place, Brocolitia, but when he did, she nodded to confirm it.
“You said you wist not how you came hither... wit you when?”
“Some little time. Nigh on eight centuries, I deem. ’Twas after the other well was ordered stopped by Theodosius, but ere the Saxons came.”
Dean came and knelt beside Samuel. “She said she hath no quarrel with Christians,” he whispered, “but an Aelred bid her go....”
Samuel nodded. “I fear he may an I tell him. Yet I cannot keep silent only for her sake.”
“Nay, do not so. I deem some Roman heathen brought aught hither to bless this well when the other was closed-a coin, belike, or some charm set amid the stones. ’Twould be that, not the well, that holds her here.”
“May be.”
“An I take that thing back to the Wall, I take the goddess back to the Wall, and all is well.”
“The well is blocked, though.”
“’Tis set in a marsh. Shall have little trouble to place the thing in water, or near enow. And she thriveth on coin-may be coins enow left there from the Romans that she shall not turn to blood.”
“Hath never done so.”
“Yet, Samuel. Yet. And for that cause and for her aid to us, she shall yet live. But....”
Samuel sighed. Ever Dean had felt that monsters could not deny their natures for aye. Seldom had he killed one for that cause alone, but I shall reform, I shall kill no more had never been plea enough to move him. “When shalt thou do this?”
“Straightaway when we have done here. Joanna and I had thought to fare that way after the wedding, but I would not trouble her with this, nor leave thee so long with aught to hide.”
Samuel nodded. Coventina was looking curiously at them by this time, so Samuel summarized Dean’s idea for her in Latin.
She raised a hand to her mouth in shock. “He... he would do that? What service would he ask for such a boon?”
Dean look startled when Samuel translated. “Er... her pledge to take no human life?”
“But he has that already.”
Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “Faith, Sammy, I wit not.”
“Sup ye, then, and I shall think of aught.”
The brothers nodded and ate their soup. When they had done, Coventina clapped her hands twice, and a folding screen appeared about one corner of the room. Samuel could just see the base of a bath behind it, and fragrant steam rose curling above it.
“Thou first, Samuel,” Dean insisted and picked up the topmost blanket from the bed to wrap about him to shield him from Coventina’s eyes.
Groaning at the effort, Samuel rose stiffly and let Dean help him cross the room, remove his bandages, and get into the bath. The water was scented with lavender, chamomile, rosemary, and some pine-like fragrance and felt a bit salty, but the heat eased his aches at once. Once he was settled, Dean brought back his mended robe and left him to soak, and soak he did and gladly. He may even have dozed off, though the warmth of the water never varied. At length, though, he took up the bar of soap that stood at hand and washed himself, then felt well enough to get out of the bath on his own and use the soft towel to dry with.
Only as he began to dress did he notice that his wounds were all but gone.
By the time Samuel had shaved and returned to the fireside to thank Coventina for the healing bath, Dean had stripped the twigs and bark from all of the branches and had whittled points on two of them, and he was a muck of sawdust and sweat. So Samuel took over carving the remaining stakes while Dean bathed and Coventina made a chicken pie and apple tarts. Dean was overjoyed, and Samuel decided that though he still preferred the company of angels, a goddess such as this one was not all bad.
Now that he was well enough, Samuel did his best to pray the Hours through the night without disturbing Dean. They had agreed to wait for daybreak before attempting the cleansing and had decided to drive back the demons before attempting to free the ghosts. But even knowing the role Coventina had to play, he knew they could never succeed with only the aid of a pagan goddess. She had, after all, been frozen out of her own well.
Samuel awakened Dean shortly before Lauds and went to a corner to pray while Dean and Coventina made ready to leave the house, collecting gear and parchment. When he had done, he gathered up his own gear, entrusted the salt and holy water to Coventina, and took Dean’s bow and quiver and two of the holly stakes from Dean. Then he breathed a quiet prayer and made the sign of the cross over himself and Dean, and they went to the door, Dean first with sword in hand, Coventina last with salt to cover their trail.
But as Dean opened the door, Samuel sensed that the ghosts were waiting, ready to help. “Friends!” he called. “Do ye speak after me! Exorcisamus te....”
And an echoing “Exorcisamus te” rippled outward as a seeming line of ghosts passed the words along.
“... omnis immundus spiritus....”
“... omnis immundus spiritus,” the ghosts repeated.
The demon cloud roiled and screamed, and Dean charged, slicing a path through the darkness with the iron blade as Samuel kept shouting the exorcism and the ghosts kept the echo alive. They came hardly to the well just as the last phrase was called and repeated, and with a great cry, many of the demons were pulled down into the earth and so returned to Hell.
Many, but by no means all. Though the exorcism contained the words “every impure spirit,” “every power of Satan,” and the like, a good number of the demons-most of the types nor Dean nor Coventina knew, belike, or belike types that took no host-were only pained and enraged. As they massed to charge, Coventina poured a circle of salt around the well, then took the two flasks of holy water and poured the water in another circle in mid-air. There it held, growing and seething as she chanted aught in an older form of Gaelic than Samuel knew.
Just as the demons surged toward the well, Coventina spoke a word of command, and the water burst forth from its holding place, reaching the ground just past the salt line and running forth across the ground with all possible speed-yet no more than an inch deep, as she had promised, not enough to damage aught. The devils wailed and fled as oil-scum on water when soap is dropped therein. Behind the leading edge of the flood, the water sank quickly into the winter-dry ground.
Then, some moments later, belike so soon as the flood reached the town’s edge, the chill deepened greatly of a sudden, turning the sodden ground to solid ice. The ghosts were at work again, Samuel knew, using their nature to see to it that the holy water could not so easily be removed ere all was done. And he breathed a silent prayer of thanks that such living death had not soured the souls of these good folk.
“Go ye now, and swiftly,” said Coventina, handing the empty flasks and bag of salt back to Samuel.
Both brothers thanked her, and they ran as best they could on the ice toward the shelter behind the grange house where Dean had penned his horse behind a salt line. But they had not gone ten yards from the well when Baduhenna appeared, her hair wild and her eyes frenzied.
“YOU!” she screamed. “How dare you stir these souls against me? How dare you bring that water here?! This land is mine!”
Dean ran her through with a stake, thus felling her, but while she was yet gasping her last breath, Váli tried to strike him from behind. Samuel saw, however, and caught Váli through the heart with a stake ere the blow could fall.
“Christian filth indeed,” Samuel muttered as Váli died. “Whose God is greater now, ye damned Northmen?”
Dean laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.
A ghost appeared before them then, the shade of a man. “Our thanks, kind sirs,” said he. “I wit not how long the Reapers shall let us stay to help, but we shall hold off the devils as best we may. Go ye now, and God speed you!”
“Fare ye well!” the brothers cried and went on to retrieve Dean’s horse, a bay mare they had bought in Damascus. Dean saddled her swiftly and helped Samuel up behind, then mounted himself and urged the horse to a gallop.
The demons had not yet regrouped fully, but those that had were waiting on the road to Rievaulx perhaps a mile from Griff. But Samuel had Dean’s bow to begin to clear the path, and Dean had his sword to cut down those that pressed too close. Yet still the battle raged the rest of the way to the abbey, where the porter flung open the iron gate as they drew nigh and closed it swiftly as soon as they had crossed onto holy ground. Outside the demons howled, but they could not gain entry.
The porter took Dean’s horse and summoned the guestmaster, who hurried the brothers into the guesthouse to wait for Abbot Aelred. As soon as they were inside, Dean set salt lines to stop Brother Thomas from entering. Once Samuel had breath enough, though, he asked for pen and ink and motioned to Dean for the parchment with the tale of Griff. Having received them all, he sat down at a table and added a line beneath Dean’s seal:
Addendum xviii. Feb. Todæg mid Goddes helpe cwellaþ min broðor Denu & ic þa deaðgodas & geafon frið & freodom to þam sawlum deaðweriga. Deo gratias. Soli Deo gloria. + Frater Samuel [1]
Standing behind him and reading, Dean squeezed his shoulder and smiled when Samuel looked around at him. “Thou speakest but of God’s help and mine?”
“All aid I have received hath been from God, even thine,” Samuel returned. “Other instruments have their reward and need no mention.”
“Oh, do thou speak English....”
Samuel could not but laugh quietly and shake his head.
While they waited for Abbot Aelred, Samuel returned the remaining stake and bow and quiver to Dean, and they talked quietly of how to trap Brother Thomas with the aid of a gift Dean had once received from a Sidhe doctor in Ireland. [2] The guestmaster also brought them each a piece of broiled fish, evidently at the abbot’s order, though Samuel’s was naturally smaller than Dean’s. A storm began to build about the abbey, though, as the demons finally regrouped.
“Art sure the storm shall do no harm an it should rain?” Dean asked quietly.
Samuel nodded. “After this time? Aye, rain shall do no harm.”
“Your pardon, Master Dean!” they heard suddenly as Abbot Aelred rushed into the room. “And thine, dear Brother Samuel! Indeed we are sorely beset this day, without and within, and I have only now been able to get away to join you. None too soon have ye come; many a thing goes unnaturally ill, and Brother Thomas has been proclaiming Samuel dead but now is in a towering rage and may yet kill someone.”
“Brother Thomas not the least, an we tarry,” Dean growled.
“We have a plan, dear Father,” Samuel stated. “But we shall need a most unusual dispensation from thee.”
Abbot Aelred looked warily from one brother to the other and sighed. “Speak ye quickly, then.”
A number of the monks had gathered in the abbey church to welcome Samuel home with their presence, though they might not speak, as Abbot Aelred walked with him back from the guesthouse. Brother Thomas was there, too, and Samuel caught the scent of sulfur just as Thomas stepped out of the shadows as they came near to the door to the cloister.
“Thou cheat!” Thomas cried. “Heathen, diviner, thou lawless scoffer! I shall-”
“Not,” Samuel replied.
And Dean, who bore the Sidhe doctor’s hex bag to hide himself from the demon’s senses as he stood behind a pillar, dove at Thomas, catching him about the middle and knocking him through the door and into the cloister. As they landed, the sacristan threw a basin of holy water over both of them. Dean became no worse than wet, but the demon screamed as the water steamed away from his borrowed flesh. Then Dean dashed back into the church, past the barrier of sixteen years’ worth of blessed salt, as Samuel began the exorcism for the second time that day.
“Ye killed my father, ye worms, ye angel-friends, ye swords of Michael!” shrieked the demon, his borrowed eyes as black as coal. “I shall wreak that death on you! [3] An ye send me hence, I shall find your father!”
“Shalt do no such thing,” replied Dean as Samuel continued the exorcism. “Shalt have long to plot in warmer climes, an those who sit above thee have their way, and thou wist well we shall have no father ere thou canst walk this earth again.”
Samuel’s heart skipped at these sayings, but he did not falter in his speech; he knew well that demons lie and that Dean had the Sight as surely as he himself did. He could only hope that Dean foreboded longer life for John than that word might seem to allow.
“Thy children, then!” the demon yelled and writhed in pain.
“Not so. Nay, my kin shall outlast thine.”
“Ha, think not so, Winchester! An ye kill me, there yet remains my sister-”
“... audi nos,” Samuel finished loudly, and the demon came out of Brother Thomas with a great cry.
Brother Thomas staggered but did not fall as Dean ran out to him and guided him into the church. And Samuel sensed the other demons fleeing-some in a gleeful rush to return to Hell and help repay their master for his failure, which Samuel did not wish to think on.
Abbot Aelred looked at Samuel in confusion. “Diviner? Sword of Michael? What meant he by these things?”
“Oh, devils lie,” said Dean lightly, sparing Samuel from answering. “Have ye some place where this poor wight might rest? After a month possessed, he shall need care.”
And Brother Thomas was indeed pale and in tears. “Good Brother Samuel, I prithee, pardon me... I wit but little of the demon’s deeds, but thee I know he wronged with words he spake with my voice.”
“’Twas none of thy doing, brother, and needs no pardon of mine,” said Samuel quietly. “Azazel’s child was strong, among the great in Hell. That he should overpower thee is no great shame.”
“Nay, had my heart been wholly God’s, he should have found no foothold. Brothers, Father Abbot, pray ye all God’s mercy for me, that I may amend!”
Abbot Aelred turned to two of the brothers who stood near at hand. “Take ye him to the warming room, and there let him rest until Vespers.”
They nodded and helped Brother Thomas out.
Then Abbot Aelred turned to Dean. “And again I cry your pardon, Master Dean. Will you let me show myself a better host now that this trial is ended?”
Dean shook his head. “My thanks, my Lord Abbot, but I have yet a vow to fulfill ere I may rest. I shall return in five days, though, by your leave, and break my journey here ere I go back to Oxenford.”
“Such leave you have, and welcome. We shall await you.”
“My thanks again. Be good, Sammy.”
“God speed thee and shield thee, Dean,” Samuel returned with a smile.
Dean smiled back and left.
Dean collected as many of his spent arrows as he could on the way back to Griff. Once there, he found the chill largely lifted and the frozen ground slowly turning to well-blessed slush. The sky was clear, as was the air, and he heard birdsong there for the first time in a week. He tied his horse to a tree, took a rope, hand pick, and candle from his pack, and cast about for a good-sized stone to anchor the rope. Another tree had an old paving stone resting among its roots, so Dean pried it loose and carried it to the well.
Coventina was waiting for him when he reached the well and held the stone for him while he tied the rope. Then she set the stone down and waited while Dean wrapped the rope about himself, lit the candle, and climbed onto the edge of the well. When he looked back, she had picked up the rope and stood ready to give him slack as he needed it. They nodded to each other, and Dean began his climb down into the well.
The coin was not so far down as he had feared, but getting it free of the stones took no little work. He had perforce to hold the candle in his teeth and almost dropped it twice. But the hole closed itself as he slipped the coin into his purse and the pick back into his belt, and Coventina pulled him back out rather more swiftly than he had expected. Yet even with this aid, the sun was lower than he should have liked when he came out. She understood his skyward look and made signs that he should go, and he nodded and returned to his horse. When he offered to help her to mount, though, she shook her head and disappeared. With a shrug, he slung himself into the saddle and turned the horse north once more, though not at a gallop.
That night he had bare time to reach Ingleby at the moors’ edge, but Coventina did not show herself at the inn there. Next day he rode on as straight across country as he might, stopping at Hamsterly for the night. Yet still no sign of the goddess did he see until he had reached Carrawburgh and found a safe place in the ruined shrine to place the coin. Then did she show herself, looking about the place in mingled joy and sorrow, but for Dean she had only a smile of thanks, which he answered with a bow.
Ere he could think how to take his leave, though, her smile changed-and such a smile could not have two meanings.
He shook his head and backed away. “Nay, great lady,” said he, forgetting she spoke no English. “I am betrothed and shall not fail my love.”
She stepped closer, and he backed into a wall. Ere he could find the door, she was before him, running a hand down his face.
“Nay, prithee-” He swallowed hard and sought the Latin words.
She reached for his belt.
“Sponsus sum!” he cried at last.
She laughed lightly and let go of him, then said aught he could not quite understand. He caught probatio-a test-and monachus, monk, which made him redden a bit. Then slowly, she said in English, “Fare you well, hunter. May your life be long and your children many.”
He bowed again and left as quickly as he could.
Not until he was back in Hamsterly did he find that she had filled his purse with gold. So he bought himself an extra tankard of good ale and decided he should be most glad to spend Shrovetide at Rievaulx. At least there the only demands upon his person would be ones Joanna should approve!
Next
[1] Addendum, February 18. Today with God’s help, my brother Dean and I killed the death-gods and gave peace and freedom to the souls of the dead. Thanks be to God. To God alone be glory. + Brother Samuel
[2] W. B. Yeats describes fairy doctors as humans who had reportedly lived among the good fairies for a time before returning to mortal lands; they were often consulted for supernatural lore and cures for witchcraft. But the French-derived fairie and fae aren’t attested in Middle English before 1300, so I’ve gone with the Irish term Sidhe here instead.
[3] The Old English wreccan means avenge.
Chapter 3
Strange Bedfellows
Coventina pulled a cup of fair water out of the air and handed it to Samuel as she explained what she knew of the demons that were outside. Some were of types she had never seen before. “But they were not simply drawn here, as ye suppose,” she continued. “’Tis true they seek vengeance for Azazel’s death, and ’tis true they chose this place because of the Northmen’s spell. Yet they came not all of their own will. The demon that now has gone among the monks is their master, one of Azazel’s children. He came here alone, seeking a likely place from which to besiege Rievaulx. Once he found the place to his liking and took the monk, he summoned the others. Banish him, and ye shall banish all the rest.”
“Would it were so simple,” Dean grumbled when Samuel had translated. “Rievaulx is two miles hence, and the devils stand in our way.”
“How if ye drive them out of the town? They are no army; they shall scatter, and fewer shall stand ’twixt here and there.”
“How, though? We cannot sow the ground with salt, nor yet with iron, not if aught shall grow hereafter. Nor can we hallow it as if it were a church or even a churchyard.”
She looked curiously at the flasks of holy water Samuel had brought.
Samuel blinked. “Flood the grange?”
When he had repeated himself in Latin, she shrugged. “Not deep enough to do damage. Just enough to make the demons run.”
While Dean considered the idea, Samuel became aware that the ghosts were doing... aught. He could not tell what, but the sense of fear began to lessen.
“You can do that?” Dean asked. “Take a flask of water and make it overrun the town?”
Coventina shrugged again. “I have made small springs flood larger plains.”
“Right, supposing this works. We still need some way to break the bond on Baduhenna and Váli.”
“What is it ye wish to free? The gods or the humans?”
“The humans, of course.”
“Have ye any care for those gods’ fate?”
Dean and Samuel looked at each other once that question was Englished. “They drink the blood of men and feast upon the slain,” said Samuel.
“Like Badb Catha?”
“Like but unlike-not the battle-slain, but rather men slain in sacrifice. And if there be none to offer sacrifice....”
“Ere long they shall take it for themselves,” Dean concluded, recalling as Samuel did the time they had had to save John from Arculus, the Roman god of chests and strongboxes. Without worshippers, Arculus had gone mad and built a cursed chest that seemed to hold great treasure but in sooth would trap the bearer until the god came to take his tribute of blood. John had sought to destroy the chest but was instead snared by it through pure mischance. Dean and Samuel had had no recourse but to kill Arculus.
Coventina shifted anxiously. “As I have said-”
Dean waved her off without waiting for Samuel to translate. “Had you taken life ere now in wanhope, we should have heard of it.”
Samuel translated that and added, “Wit you what kills the Northmen’s gods?”
“Wooden stakes, in most cases,” she replied. “Evergreen is best-”
She was interrupted by the sounds of shouting and of branches crashing out of the holly tree that stood near the house. Dean and Coventina both looked sorely confused, but Samuel understood. The ghosts had heard and knew at last how to gain their freedom. When the crashing had stopped, the shouting increased, now joined by the howls of demons.
“Dean, the door,” Samuel said.
Sword in hand, Dean ran to the door and reached it just as someone knocked. Samuel nodded, and Dean opened just in time for the shade of a woman to throw four stout holly branches through, wave, and vanish. Then an acheri laughed, and Dean slammed the door to again and barred it.
“This,” quoth he, picking up the branches, “must be the maddest hunt I have ever been on.”
Coventina needed no translation to laugh at his tone.
Because Dean now had stakes to carve-two for each brother, as seemed the ghosts’ intent, lest mischance befall-Coventina set herself to mind the fire and cook the meals. Dean refused to let her tend to Samuel’s wounds, but sooth to say, Samuel was feeling well enough that he needed little help in moving about when he was not sleeping and could spare Dean’s constant care. He felt well enough, too, to ask the goddess to make the soup with fowl or fish. And much to both brothers’ surprise, she made cock-a-leekie, which had also been one of Mary’s favorites.
“How came you to know this dish?” Samuel asked her.
She smiled. “On a time, I had a shrine some leagues north, by Hadrian’s Wall. Some converse I had with the Picts and their gods.”
Dean picked up enough words to lean forward ere Samuel could translate. “Hadrian’s Wall. Of course. I have heard of a place there-at Carrawburgh, Coventina’s Well. ’Tis a shrine built about a spring.”
It took some doing for Samuel to recall the Roman name of the place, Brocolitia, but when he did, she nodded to confirm it.
“You said you wist not how you came hither... wit you when?”
“Some little time. Nigh on eight centuries, I deem. ’Twas after the other well was ordered stopped by Theodosius, but ere the Saxons came.”
Dean came and knelt beside Samuel. “She said she hath no quarrel with Christians,” he whispered, “but an Aelred bid her go....”
Samuel nodded. “I fear he may an I tell him. Yet I cannot keep silent only for her sake.”
“Nay, do not so. I deem some Roman heathen brought aught hither to bless this well when the other was closed-a coin, belike, or some charm set amid the stones. ’Twould be that, not the well, that holds her here.”
“May be.”
“An I take that thing back to the Wall, I take the goddess back to the Wall, and all is well.”
“The well is blocked, though.”
“’Tis set in a marsh. Shall have little trouble to place the thing in water, or near enow. And she thriveth on coin-may be coins enow left there from the Romans that she shall not turn to blood.”
“Hath never done so.”
“Yet, Samuel. Yet. And for that cause and for her aid to us, she shall yet live. But....”
Samuel sighed. Ever Dean had felt that monsters could not deny their natures for aye. Seldom had he killed one for that cause alone, but I shall reform, I shall kill no more had never been plea enough to move him. “When shalt thou do this?”
“Straightaway when we have done here. Joanna and I had thought to fare that way after the wedding, but I would not trouble her with this, nor leave thee so long with aught to hide.”
Samuel nodded. Coventina was looking curiously at them by this time, so Samuel summarized Dean’s idea for her in Latin.
She raised a hand to her mouth in shock. “He... he would do that? What service would he ask for such a boon?”
Dean look startled when Samuel translated. “Er... her pledge to take no human life?”
“But he has that already.”
Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “Faith, Sammy, I wit not.”
“Sup ye, then, and I shall think of aught.”
The brothers nodded and ate their soup. When they had done, Coventina clapped her hands twice, and a folding screen appeared about one corner of the room. Samuel could just see the base of a bath behind it, and fragrant steam rose curling above it.
“Thou first, Samuel,” Dean insisted and picked up the topmost blanket from the bed to wrap about him to shield him from Coventina’s eyes.
Groaning at the effort, Samuel rose stiffly and let Dean help him cross the room, remove his bandages, and get into the bath. The water was scented with lavender, chamomile, rosemary, and some pine-like fragrance and felt a bit salty, but the heat eased his aches at once. Once he was settled, Dean brought back his mended robe and left him to soak, and soak he did and gladly. He may even have dozed off, though the warmth of the water never varied. At length, though, he took up the bar of soap that stood at hand and washed himself, then felt well enough to get out of the bath on his own and use the soft towel to dry with.
Only as he began to dress did he notice that his wounds were all but gone.
By the time Samuel had shaved and returned to the fireside to thank Coventina for the healing bath, Dean had stripped the twigs and bark from all of the branches and had whittled points on two of them, and he was a muck of sawdust and sweat. So Samuel took over carving the remaining stakes while Dean bathed and Coventina made a chicken pie and apple tarts. Dean was overjoyed, and Samuel decided that though he still preferred the company of angels, a goddess such as this one was not all bad.
Now that he was well enough, Samuel did his best to pray the Hours through the night without disturbing Dean. They had agreed to wait for daybreak before attempting the cleansing and had decided to drive back the demons before attempting to free the ghosts. But even knowing the role Coventina had to play, he knew they could never succeed with only the aid of a pagan goddess. She had, after all, been frozen out of her own well.
Samuel awakened Dean shortly before Lauds and went to a corner to pray while Dean and Coventina made ready to leave the house, collecting gear and parchment. When he had done, he gathered up his own gear, entrusted the salt and holy water to Coventina, and took Dean’s bow and quiver and two of the holly stakes from Dean. Then he breathed a quiet prayer and made the sign of the cross over himself and Dean, and they went to the door, Dean first with sword in hand, Coventina last with salt to cover their trail.
But as Dean opened the door, Samuel sensed that the ghosts were waiting, ready to help. “Friends!” he called. “Do ye speak after me! Exorcisamus te....”
And an echoing “Exorcisamus te” rippled outward as a seeming line of ghosts passed the words along.
“... omnis immundus spiritus....”
“... omnis immundus spiritus,” the ghosts repeated.
The demon cloud roiled and screamed, and Dean charged, slicing a path through the darkness with the iron blade as Samuel kept shouting the exorcism and the ghosts kept the echo alive. They came hardly to the well just as the last phrase was called and repeated, and with a great cry, many of the demons were pulled down into the earth and so returned to Hell.
Many, but by no means all. Though the exorcism contained the words “every impure spirit,” “every power of Satan,” and the like, a good number of the demons-most of the types nor Dean nor Coventina knew, belike, or belike types that took no host-were only pained and enraged. As they massed to charge, Coventina poured a circle of salt around the well, then took the two flasks of holy water and poured the water in another circle in mid-air. There it held, growing and seething as she chanted aught in an older form of Gaelic than Samuel knew.
Just as the demons surged toward the well, Coventina spoke a word of command, and the water burst forth from its holding place, reaching the ground just past the salt line and running forth across the ground with all possible speed-yet no more than an inch deep, as she had promised, not enough to damage aught. The devils wailed and fled as oil-scum on water when soap is dropped therein. Behind the leading edge of the flood, the water sank quickly into the winter-dry ground.
Then, some moments later, belike so soon as the flood reached the town’s edge, the chill deepened greatly of a sudden, turning the sodden ground to solid ice. The ghosts were at work again, Samuel knew, using their nature to see to it that the holy water could not so easily be removed ere all was done. And he breathed a silent prayer of thanks that such living death had not soured the souls of these good folk.
“Go ye now, and swiftly,” said Coventina, handing the empty flasks and bag of salt back to Samuel.
Both brothers thanked her, and they ran as best they could on the ice toward the shelter behind the grange house where Dean had penned his horse behind a salt line. But they had not gone ten yards from the well when Baduhenna appeared, her hair wild and her eyes frenzied.
“YOU!” she screamed. “How dare you stir these souls against me? How dare you bring that water here?! This land is mine!”
Dean ran her through with a stake, thus felling her, but while she was yet gasping her last breath, Váli tried to strike him from behind. Samuel saw, however, and caught Váli through the heart with a stake ere the blow could fall.
“Christian filth indeed,” Samuel muttered as Váli died. “Whose God is greater now, ye damned Northmen?”
Dean laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.
A ghost appeared before them then, the shade of a man. “Our thanks, kind sirs,” said he. “I wit not how long the Reapers shall let us stay to help, but we shall hold off the devils as best we may. Go ye now, and God speed you!”
“Fare ye well!” the brothers cried and went on to retrieve Dean’s horse, a bay mare they had bought in Damascus. Dean saddled her swiftly and helped Samuel up behind, then mounted himself and urged the horse to a gallop.
The demons had not yet regrouped fully, but those that had were waiting on the road to Rievaulx perhaps a mile from Griff. But Samuel had Dean’s bow to begin to clear the path, and Dean had his sword to cut down those that pressed too close. Yet still the battle raged the rest of the way to the abbey, where the porter flung open the iron gate as they drew nigh and closed it swiftly as soon as they had crossed onto holy ground. Outside the demons howled, but they could not gain entry.
The porter took Dean’s horse and summoned the guestmaster, who hurried the brothers into the guesthouse to wait for Abbot Aelred. As soon as they were inside, Dean set salt lines to stop Brother Thomas from entering. Once Samuel had breath enough, though, he asked for pen and ink and motioned to Dean for the parchment with the tale of Griff. Having received them all, he sat down at a table and added a line beneath Dean’s seal:
Addendum xviii. Feb. Todæg mid Goddes helpe cwellaþ min broðor Denu & ic þa deaðgodas & geafon frið & freodom to þam sawlum deaðweriga. Deo gratias. Soli Deo gloria. + Frater Samuel [1]
Standing behind him and reading, Dean squeezed his shoulder and smiled when Samuel looked around at him. “Thou speakest but of God’s help and mine?”
“All aid I have received hath been from God, even thine,” Samuel returned. “Other instruments have their reward and need no mention.”
“Oh, do thou speak English....”
Samuel could not but laugh quietly and shake his head.
While they waited for Abbot Aelred, Samuel returned the remaining stake and bow and quiver to Dean, and they talked quietly of how to trap Brother Thomas with the aid of a gift Dean had once received from a Sidhe doctor in Ireland. [2] The guestmaster also brought them each a piece of broiled fish, evidently at the abbot’s order, though Samuel’s was naturally smaller than Dean’s. A storm began to build about the abbey, though, as the demons finally regrouped.
“Art sure the storm shall do no harm an it should rain?” Dean asked quietly.
Samuel nodded. “After this time? Aye, rain shall do no harm.”
“Your pardon, Master Dean!” they heard suddenly as Abbot Aelred rushed into the room. “And thine, dear Brother Samuel! Indeed we are sorely beset this day, without and within, and I have only now been able to get away to join you. None too soon have ye come; many a thing goes unnaturally ill, and Brother Thomas has been proclaiming Samuel dead but now is in a towering rage and may yet kill someone.”
“Brother Thomas not the least, an we tarry,” Dean growled.
“We have a plan, dear Father,” Samuel stated. “But we shall need a most unusual dispensation from thee.”
Abbot Aelred looked warily from one brother to the other and sighed. “Speak ye quickly, then.”
A number of the monks had gathered in the abbey church to welcome Samuel home with their presence, though they might not speak, as Abbot Aelred walked with him back from the guesthouse. Brother Thomas was there, too, and Samuel caught the scent of sulfur just as Thomas stepped out of the shadows as they came near to the door to the cloister.
“Thou cheat!” Thomas cried. “Heathen, diviner, thou lawless scoffer! I shall-”
“Not,” Samuel replied.
And Dean, who bore the Sidhe doctor’s hex bag to hide himself from the demon’s senses as he stood behind a pillar, dove at Thomas, catching him about the middle and knocking him through the door and into the cloister. As they landed, the sacristan threw a basin of holy water over both of them. Dean became no worse than wet, but the demon screamed as the water steamed away from his borrowed flesh. Then Dean dashed back into the church, past the barrier of sixteen years’ worth of blessed salt, as Samuel began the exorcism for the second time that day.
“Ye killed my father, ye worms, ye angel-friends, ye swords of Michael!” shrieked the demon, his borrowed eyes as black as coal. “I shall wreak that death on you! [3] An ye send me hence, I shall find your father!”
“Shalt do no such thing,” replied Dean as Samuel continued the exorcism. “Shalt have long to plot in warmer climes, an those who sit above thee have their way, and thou wist well we shall have no father ere thou canst walk this earth again.”
Samuel’s heart skipped at these sayings, but he did not falter in his speech; he knew well that demons lie and that Dean had the Sight as surely as he himself did. He could only hope that Dean foreboded longer life for John than that word might seem to allow.
“Thy children, then!” the demon yelled and writhed in pain.
“Not so. Nay, my kin shall outlast thine.”
“Ha, think not so, Winchester! An ye kill me, there yet remains my sister-”
“... audi nos,” Samuel finished loudly, and the demon came out of Brother Thomas with a great cry.
Brother Thomas staggered but did not fall as Dean ran out to him and guided him into the church. And Samuel sensed the other demons fleeing-some in a gleeful rush to return to Hell and help repay their master for his failure, which Samuel did not wish to think on.
Abbot Aelred looked at Samuel in confusion. “Diviner? Sword of Michael? What meant he by these things?”
“Oh, devils lie,” said Dean lightly, sparing Samuel from answering. “Have ye some place where this poor wight might rest? After a month possessed, he shall need care.”
And Brother Thomas was indeed pale and in tears. “Good Brother Samuel, I prithee, pardon me... I wit but little of the demon’s deeds, but thee I know he wronged with words he spake with my voice.”
“’Twas none of thy doing, brother, and needs no pardon of mine,” said Samuel quietly. “Azazel’s child was strong, among the great in Hell. That he should overpower thee is no great shame.”
“Nay, had my heart been wholly God’s, he should have found no foothold. Brothers, Father Abbot, pray ye all God’s mercy for me, that I may amend!”
Abbot Aelred turned to two of the brothers who stood near at hand. “Take ye him to the warming room, and there let him rest until Vespers.”
They nodded and helped Brother Thomas out.
Then Abbot Aelred turned to Dean. “And again I cry your pardon, Master Dean. Will you let me show myself a better host now that this trial is ended?”
Dean shook his head. “My thanks, my Lord Abbot, but I have yet a vow to fulfill ere I may rest. I shall return in five days, though, by your leave, and break my journey here ere I go back to Oxenford.”
“Such leave you have, and welcome. We shall await you.”
“My thanks again. Be good, Sammy.”
“God speed thee and shield thee, Dean,” Samuel returned with a smile.
Dean smiled back and left.
Dean collected as many of his spent arrows as he could on the way back to Griff. Once there, he found the chill largely lifted and the frozen ground slowly turning to well-blessed slush. The sky was clear, as was the air, and he heard birdsong there for the first time in a week. He tied his horse to a tree, took a rope, hand pick, and candle from his pack, and cast about for a good-sized stone to anchor the rope. Another tree had an old paving stone resting among its roots, so Dean pried it loose and carried it to the well.
Coventina was waiting for him when he reached the well and held the stone for him while he tied the rope. Then she set the stone down and waited while Dean wrapped the rope about himself, lit the candle, and climbed onto the edge of the well. When he looked back, she had picked up the rope and stood ready to give him slack as he needed it. They nodded to each other, and Dean began his climb down into the well.
The coin was not so far down as he had feared, but getting it free of the stones took no little work. He had perforce to hold the candle in his teeth and almost dropped it twice. But the hole closed itself as he slipped the coin into his purse and the pick back into his belt, and Coventina pulled him back out rather more swiftly than he had expected. Yet even with this aid, the sun was lower than he should have liked when he came out. She understood his skyward look and made signs that he should go, and he nodded and returned to his horse. When he offered to help her to mount, though, she shook her head and disappeared. With a shrug, he slung himself into the saddle and turned the horse north once more, though not at a gallop.
That night he had bare time to reach Ingleby at the moors’ edge, but Coventina did not show herself at the inn there. Next day he rode on as straight across country as he might, stopping at Hamsterly for the night. Yet still no sign of the goddess did he see until he had reached Carrawburgh and found a safe place in the ruined shrine to place the coin. Then did she show herself, looking about the place in mingled joy and sorrow, but for Dean she had only a smile of thanks, which he answered with a bow.
Ere he could think how to take his leave, though, her smile changed-and such a smile could not have two meanings.
He shook his head and backed away. “Nay, great lady,” said he, forgetting she spoke no English. “I am betrothed and shall not fail my love.”
She stepped closer, and he backed into a wall. Ere he could find the door, she was before him, running a hand down his face.
“Nay, prithee-” He swallowed hard and sought the Latin words.
She reached for his belt.
“Sponsus sum!” he cried at last.
She laughed lightly and let go of him, then said aught he could not quite understand. He caught probatio-a test-and monachus, monk, which made him redden a bit. Then slowly, she said in English, “Fare you well, hunter. May your life be long and your children many.”
He bowed again and left as quickly as he could.
Not until he was back in Hamsterly did he find that she had filled his purse with gold. So he bought himself an extra tankard of good ale and decided he should be most glad to spend Shrovetide at Rievaulx. At least there the only demands upon his person would be ones Joanna should approve!
Next
[1] Addendum, February 18. Today with God’s help, my brother Dean and I killed the death-gods and gave peace and freedom to the souls of the dead. Thanks be to God. To God alone be glory. + Brother Samuel
[2] W. B. Yeats describes fairy doctors as humans who had reportedly lived among the good fairies for a time before returning to mortal lands; they were often consulted for supernatural lore and cures for witchcraft. But the French-derived fairie and fae aren’t attested in Middle English before 1300, so I’ve gone with the Irish term Sidhe here instead.
[3] The Old English wreccan means avenge.