“Now, Brother Hendrik!” a friar cried, and one of his fellows stepped forward with a tinder box. He scooped up the tiny creature and snapped the lid shut.
Gregory and Geoffrey shouted with triumph. Another voice joined them; turning in surprise, they saw Alain standing near the door, cheering as lustily as they.
But the friars did not cheer, only sang a hymn of thanks to the Deity who had vanquished their enemy. Their song soared and ended, and the church lay silent a moment, its stone walls gilded by the light of the candle flames.
Then a squeaking came from the tinder box, a cricket chirp that formed itself into words: “What will you do with me? Have mercy, I pray!”
“What mercy did you show to those who came within your power?” a friar demanded.
“You shall be served even as you served your fellows,” another friar agreed.
“Do me this much, at least!” the tiny voice implored. “Bury this box under the bridge across the village stream, that I may be not completely alone!”
“Nay, fellow,” the oldest friar said sternly. “We know the malice in your heart.”
“And the powers even a tiny ghost may have,” another graying friar agreed. “Most likely you would make every pregnant woman who crossed that bridge miscarry.”
“Aye, and every cow and ewe, too,” a third friar added.
The tinder box issued a frenzy of chirping that modulated into words. “A curse upon you for your suspicious minds!”
“If he would curse us, then we were right in our guessing his mischief,” the oldest friar said with a grim smile. “Nay, villain, we shall wrap this box in lead and send it to the seacoast for a fisherman to take and sink as many fathoms deep as he can.”
“Think of charity!” the box squeaked. “Would you doom me to eternity within this cramped and lightless space?”
“If it is not to your liking, you may go to the Afterworld and the reward your cruelty has earned you.”
“Cruel as you, if you would doom me to damnation! You know that hellfire awaits me!”
“It is the fate you have chosen for yourself,” the friar said severely, “by your mistreatment of your fellows while you lived.”
Gregory stepped forward, one hand raised. “If I may intrude, holy brothers?”
The friars look up, startled. Then the oldest friar said slowly, “I wondered how our candles relit themselves. Well, if it is you who made them glow to life again, speak, for you have earned some voice in this matter, stranger or not.”
“I thank you, men of grace.” Gregory stared at the box, fascinated. “Might you not sing the bull down smaller still, say to the size of a gnat, so that to him, his chamber is as spacious as a palace?”
The friars exchanged a look of surprise. “Aye,” the eldest said slowly, “in charity’s name, we might do that much.”
“But to never again see light!” the box squeaked.
“Do not believe him,” Gregory advised. “He is a ghost, after all, and can lighten his palace with his own glow.”
“Curse you for knowing that!” the box squeaked.
“What,” the friar cried, scandalized, “would you curse him who even now spoke up for you, who thought to make you so small that your chamber would seem a cavern? Nay, you are not worthy of such kindness after all!”
“No, no!” the bull squeaked. “I spoke rashly, I spoke in error! Nay, I revoke all curses I have laid! Only sing me smaller, men of virtue!”
“Would it were something other than force that could induce his remorse,” the friar sighed, “but we can afford a morsel of charity after all. Brothers, let us sing.”
Alain, Geoffrey, and Gregory left the church as they began. They paused a moment on the common to look back at the chapel, listening to the harmonies rising within.
“To look at it now, one would think only of peace and calm,” Alain marveled.
“Aye,” Geoffrey agreed. “Who could know of the cruelty and depth of malice of the creature, or the determination and courage it took to quell it?”
“It is enough that we know, and that harmony is restored to this village.” Gregory looked up at the sky in wonder. “This has taken far longer than it seemed, friends. Dawn lightens the sky.”
“Why, so it does,” Alain said, astonished, then turned to mount his horse. “Somehow I have no great desire to sleep in this village, day or night. Since there will be light to show us our way, let us ride on a few miles more and pitch camp in some meadow.”
“A good thought.” Geoffrey swung up astride his stallion. “Still, I cannot be sorry that we pressed on through darkness last night.”
“Nor I,” Gregory admitted. He set his foot in the stirrup and mounted. “Come, gentlemen, let us ride, for we can surely find a more secure place of rest than this.”
Nonetheless, as they rode over the log bridge toward the forest, Geoffrey turned to his brother with a frown. “What are you smiling about now, Watchman?”
“Only thinking that word travels, and the friars have no reason to keep the events of this night secret,” Gregory answered. “I doubt not that the folk of this village will be very cautious about crossing this bridge for some years to come.”
“Have you any biscuit left, Cordelia?” Quicksilver asked. “Mine is gone, and I’ve only a few strips of jerky left.”
“I’ve four biscuits but no dried beef.” Cordelia handed hardtack to each of the women. “We shall keep one in reserve.”
Hunger gnawed at Allouette’s stomach—indeed, it growled at her in anger as she passed the biscuit back to Cordelia. “I thank you, damsel, but I can last some while longer. Perchance we shall find some nuts or berries.”
“Or a rabbit who has tired of life?” Quicksilver asked. “Perhaps I shall hunt when we pitch camp, but skinning and roasting will delay us too long for the sharpness of my hunger.”
“I shall subsist on the beauty that surrounds us.” Allouette looked around at the trees to either side of the trail. “Surely these are old and venerable trunks! So tall, so massive!”
“I see some that are neither.” Cordelia nodded toward a coppice, a patch of several dozen oak trees only a little more than a foot across. Then she looked down at the roots. “Why, they are growing from the stumps of trees fallen before them!”
They looked and saw that each of the young trees had a flat plane of wood beneath it, some only a foot high, some two feet—but eighteen inches wide or more, and each grew from the center of a three-foot-wide stump. Almost every one had another, smaller stump that had grown out of the side.
“Why, the oaks of this coppice have been cut three times!” Cordelia exclaimed. “These trees are the fourth generation!”
Allouette shivered. “There is something uncanny about this place, something weird, as though it waits to trap the unwary.”
“Well might it hold a grudge against humankind, if each of its oaks has been chopped down three times!” Cordelia said with a laugh. “Nonetheless, you cannot deny that it is a pretty place.”
“Oh yes, it is lovely,” Allouette agreed, “perhaps because these trees spread so much smaller a canopy than the hoary old giants about them. They let more sunlight in—and look! The coppice is filled with bluebells!”
The small blue flowers did indeed fill the little grove so densely that they almost seemed to be a carpet. Among them the red tops of toadstools thrust up.