Free Something Red by Douglas Nicholas

hammer, beak-down in the dirt, and his forehead rested on his hands. He seemed asleep, but lightly, and the weapon was under his hand. Hob rolled onto his side and watched Jack through eyes that would not open fully. Something was different. . . . Hob realized that Jack was silent. He was used to the bone-rattlingsnores of the soldier, echoing through their tiny camps. Even as he looked, Jack lifted his head and scanned the clearing.
    Across the nearest fire, two young men—Hob recognized the sickly woman’s sons—paced quietly about the periphery, hefty staves in hand. Jack let his head drop once more, and Hob closed his eyes.
    After what seemed a moment Hob opened his eyes and Jack was again on his feet and stalking the edge of the clearing. The fires were gray ash, with here and there a golden ember; down all the aisles of the trees to the east stole a thin gray-blue light. A chill breeze rose up. Morning was at hand.
    T HE PARTY BROKE CAMP quickly and were soon on their way. Near the end of the next afternoon the road dipped into a dell, through pools of shadow cast by the ridges around; the trees above were still lit by the declining sun, but here in this hollow there fell an early twilight. Hob found himself leaning back against the slope as the monks had done on Monastery Mount.
    Clumps of gorse rose to either hand; as the travelers descended into the damp little valley, birch and hazel gave way to alder and willow. Ahead the track curved out of sight around a stand of snow-sodden pines, but Hob could hear the leading pilgrims exclaiming; an excited hubbub arose.
    As the ox plodded around the turn, the way widened somewhat; the high banks to either side fell away; the declining sun fell brightly on open land. A broad trail swung in from the north and ended at Hob’s left hand. On his right, set back a bit from the road, nestled into a forest clearing, now appeared the massive log-built sides of Osbert’s Inn.

Part II
     
     

    THE INN

CHAPTER 5
    O SBERT’S INN WAS COMPOSED of three buildings that nestled against one another and a stalwart high wall across the north front, forming a square with a large courtyard in the center. Midway in the north wall were wide double doors; these doors now stood open, and within Hob could glimpse the first pilgrims looking about eagerly at the night’s accommodation.
    Osbert’s grandfather, Forwin atte Well, had been a prosperous householder—Osbert still had his tunic, dyed a forest green and trimmed with squirrel—farming his three virgates of land, on which was the excellent well that gave the family its name. Forwin had supplemented his family’s substantial wealth, as many villagers did in those times, by providing hospitality to travelers and pilgrims in his own house. Osbert’s father, Ernald, had made the inn the focus ofthe family’s efforts, although the seventy-two-acre farm still supplied much of the inn’s produce.
    Ernald had built the inn of great logs to make a secure dwelling for the night; the more usual wattle and daub walls were in danger of being tunneled through. In Bywood Old End, the tiny village that lay perhaps a quarter mile from the inn, some of the outlying cottages had suffered the depredations of roving bands of thieves called housebreakers, who would break through a dried-mud cottage wall with a plowshare used as a ram, take what they might, sometimes injuring or killing those within, and disappear southward into the forest.
    The inn doors were closed these days at sundown and opened only for departing villagers, and with caution, in the hours of darkness. Osbert had a fair amount of custom from these villagers; whole families would spend the evenings there, especially in winter with its long nights and idle days. Folk arrived in small groups at dusk, but left in one large band, with drunken quarrels and snatches of song echoing through the trees, whoops and whistles floating back to the inn, fading with distance, the noise falling off