Intently at Them Both

As the Marcher approached, the people carrying the flags and banners started coming through the gate, arranging themselves either side of the open area. They were followed by torch bearers who cast a fitful light that just confused the eye as it seemed to clash with the dying light of the evening. Then the musicians came through the gate and started playing a kind of chaotic fanfare, using a strange assortment of drums, trumpets, cymbals and double reed instruments with no obvious pattern to the sound. As the musicians came through the gate they started playing, apparently paying no attention whatsoever to what any of the other musicians were doing other than attempting to drown them out by making as much noise as possible. The noise seemed to reach a crescendo as the first of the chairs approached the gate.

Suddenly, miraculously, the drums and cymbals took up a single rhythm; the trumpets followed, taking up another pattern, blaring out a slow high melody as the double reeds took up a quicker theme that seemed to skit around the space provided by the rhythm from the drums and the cymbals and the slow melody from the trumpets.

There were eight men carrying the leading chair. They came through the gate; the canopy of the chair only just clearing the arch of the gate. The chair was occupied by a thin, elderly man with a grey, quiet face. He wore the traditional, loose robes of his people; the hood thrown back so the people could see his face. His face was quite expressionless. He looked around him, apparently without expectation or anticipation; he expected nothing and looked for nothing other what he saw.

Manueline watched him intently, watching to see who he was and what he wanted of them. She realized, as they put his chair down and all the people bowed to him, that he wanted nothing from them; or rather he expected nothing from them. She smiled to herself, knowing there was more in what they carried with them than he recognized. She saw the first dawning of that recognition when the wolf walked out of the dark where he had been taking some refuge from the heat. He walked across the open area, ignoring everyone except Manueline as he sat down beside her, flopping on his side, resting his head against her ankles. Manueline smiled again and looked down at him, asking if he was hot, quietly promising him some water as soon as she had a moment.

Neither Manueline nor Libby had acknowledged the man in the chair other than to look at him. Manueline saw the others of their party bow to him along with the other people in the crowd. Something distracted Manueline and kept her upright. Libby followed her example again; when she chose not to acknowledge the man in the chair he followed her and they both just stood looking at him, Manueline occasionally looking down at the wolf.

The old man raised his right hand, nodding to them, an ironic smile on his face. He turned his hand, cupping his fingers a little and nodded to them again, flexing his wrist, evidently beckoning them forward. Libby still had his hand on Manueline's shoulder; he slipped his hand down to be round her waist and the two of them walked forward. The wolf grunted in protest as Manueline moved and scrambled idly to his feet following a couple of steps behind them. The old man turned a little, saying something in the local dialect to the people behind him and there was a quick scramble as two chairs further back in the procession were vacated by their occupants and brought forward; they were placed on the ground a little ahead of the elderly man. The chairs were smaller than his and put anyone sitting on them on a slightly lower level than the elderly man. Manueline still had the feeling they were being given an extraordinary distinction and smiled at Libby as he handed her into one of the chairs and then sat in the other one. The wolf looked more disgruntled than ever and threw himself on the ground at Manueline's feet.

The elderly man looked at the wolf and laughed and said something to one of the people behind him who also laughed. The wolf raised his head closed his mouth and looked intently at them both. The elderly man smiled nodding his head, an appreciative twist to his lips. He looked up, still smiling and spoke to them for the first time.

"Greetings dancers, travelers from the valley, welcome to Eaton. It is many years since anyone danced up out of the valley. You are welcome. I am the Marcher, the Lord of the East." He waved a hand towards the people behind him. "We welcome you with water for your feet and water to drink." As he spoke four people came out of the crowd behind him. Two of them each carried a tray with a large jug and a mug on it, the other two carried a bowl with an equally large jug sitting in the bowl.

The wolf lifted his head sniffing at the air. Manueline found she could smell the water in the jugs. The cup bearers contrived to balance the tray on one hand, pick up the jug and pour water into the cup. They presented the cups, one to Libby and one to Manueline. The bowl bearers put the bowls down at their feet and poured water into them evidently intending to wash their feet. All present seemed to regard the whole process with great solemnity but the effect was quite spoiled when the wolf suddenly got to his feet, literally pushing one of the bowl bearers aside, and proceeding to drink noisily from the foot bath. He slurped away at the water with great relish, keeping a wary eye on the elderly man and the bowl bearer who was standing with a horrified look on his face, watching the wolf drinking enthusiastically from the bowl.

The elderly man in the chair laughed and said something to the bowl bearer who bowed and retreated into the crowd, returning a moment later with another bowl and jug. He rather awkwardly placed the bowl at Manueline's feet, avoiding contact with the wolf who was still happily slurping away at the water in the original bowl. The wolf looked up, evidently taking an interest in the other bowl as the bowl bearer poured water into it with rather less of a flourish than he used in filling the original bowl.

Manueline laughed, taking pity on him and pushed the wolf out of the way with her foot, pushing the original bowl out of the way as well. The bowl bearer looked up at her a grateful smile on his face as he gingerly took one of her feet, untied and removed her shoe and dipped the foot in the water. The wolf watched him, comically lifting his head and looking over the man's shoulder trying to see what he was doing with Manueline's feet. It seemed the whole crowd caught a sense of what the wolf was doing. No one laughed outright, they took the ceremonial washing of the feet and offering of the water far too seriously, but there were smiles and remarks all round the crowd, especially when the wolf made his way over to Libby's chair and started sniffing at the other bowl.

Manueline was wondering when they would get to the point of introducing themselves when there was a disturbance in the crowd as a couple of young men pushed their way to the front elbowing others aside. One of them, carrying a large hunting bow, looked in disgust at the wolf and reached over his back pulling an arrow out of the quiver. The wolf immediately lost interest in the water and started watching the man. Manueline looked over at him and then at the elderly man to see what he would do. He just sat watching, his face quite expressionless again.

Manueline called out, "If you shoot at the wolf you will die, he will kill you." The man looked briefly at her, knocked the arrow and drew the bow raising it, aiming it at the wolf. "I warn you, you will die." She looked at the old man briefly again. She saw his eyes flit in her direction but then return to the wolf and the man with the bow. He plainly had no intention of interfering.

Manueline looked at the wolf. HHHHhhhhhje was quite motionless, pointing directly at the man with the bow, seeming to lean in one direction. One of the bowl bearers found himself on the line between the wolf and the man with the bow and scuttled out of the way. Manueline knew what the wolf was doing. He was making the bowman think his weight was on one side. She knew it was deceptive. He was leaning to the left, making it seem as though he would jump to the right, she knew from experience, he could jump either way. The tension round the circle of people mounted as the wolf stood, apparently quite at ease watching the bowman and the bowman became visibly more and more tense as the moments passed.

Finally he loosed the arrow. It seemed to the people watching that the wolf hardly moved, he just shifted his body slightly to the left at the moment the bowmen let go and the arrow whizzed past him and skitted along the ground, drawing a cry from someone behind him in the crowd. By then the wolf was gone. Before the cry, before the bowman could even begin to recover himself, the wolf was on him, leaping at him, knocking him over. Briefly the man was saved by the loose clothes the people wore as the wolf went for him. Briefly again he was saved when one of the men, who had burst through the crowd with him, drew a sword and swung it up, bringing it down, intending to cut across the wolf's back. The wolf saw the strike and dodged out of the way as the cut came down and there was a brief, strangled cry as the sword bit into the bowman's ribs and then a scream of agony as the wolf turned on the swordsman. The swordsman was trying to pull the sword out from the bowman's ribs. The wolf took the swordsman's wrist in his massive jaws and bit the hand clean off.

People in the crowd were scattering all around them. Desperately trying to get out of the way of the wolf and what he might do. Several people tripped and fell and were trampled by those around them so the wolf was left in a circle of frantic people most of them with their backs to him. The elderly man in the chair remained impassive through it all, he just sat and watched, his expression hardly changing.

Manueline stood and called to the wolf, "Wolf, here to me. Wolf!" The wolf snapped and snarled at the people around him. Then he heard her, looked contemptuously at the people in the crowd, looked again at the bowman, lying lifeless in a pool of his own blood, and trotted over to where Manueline still sat in the chair, watched by the elderly man. He went back to the original bowl and drank from it leaving little red trails of blood where he took the water. He stopped at one point and looked intently over to where the bowman lay still on the ground, watching as some people came and picked him up, wrapped him in a cloth and carried him off.

They could hear the intermittent sobbing of the swordsman. Manueline had lost track of where he was but she guessed he had been taken inside the gate but not far as they could still hear him. The elderly man turned and said something to one of the people behind him. A couple of men disappeared inside the gate. There was a shriek of anguish and despair, recognizably the swordsman's voice again, then silence. The whole town seemed to take on the silence broken only by the wolf panting at Manueline's feet. He was hot from the effort of tackling the bowman and the swordsman. He slowly relaxed and lay down, his head on his paws, watching the people around him.

By this time it was quite dark. The only light came from the torches that surrounded the area occupied by the three chairs. The elderly man looked up, nodding his head a little. Manueline was about to speak when he held up his hand. "I know, you told him, 'Shoot at the wolf and you will die'. He chose not to believe. Now he knows, as do we all."

Manueline wanted to ask who he was but felt constrained by the fact that the elderly man, the Lord of the East, did not know their names. It seemed odd to start asking other people's names when their own names where not known.

To follow this thread in the story go to: Very Little about Me

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