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Now I’m running like an idiot. First I hear Capon spur on his hounds, ya, yaaa, the thunder of hooves and ugly barking. Soon only the barking echoes through the woods. A bit later, it’s silence, Christ, almost silence : I hear myself pant, trying to keep up. I follow upturned leaves with my head down, I almost bump into trees. I trip on a root, fall, hurt my knee. Stupid Capon and his stupid ideas. One arrow to fall a boar, what’s next, fishing without a rod? He’s far too precious to even touch a fish. He’s slimier than any old carp but I’ll admit he smells alright. I noticed yesterday when he punched me. He has a mean right hook, though fragrant. An honest hand smells of ball-sweat in the morning and mud on the eve. His smells like rose water. Prick.
The tracks seem to split. I wonder what happened - it seems like the paths divide. I pick one just because the sun does not shine directly into my eyes, a bit like when I’m looking for mushrooms.
The silence again dies. Capon’s cursing his lungs out. Son of a whore! I’ll cuck that old tramp you call your father! I want to call for him but he’s not alone. I hear Cumans, their ugly language, spit coated, God, I could almost see their evil faces. I slow down, start stalking. Whatever’s happening, it’s no good, no.
I finally get a good venture point. Capon is on his knees, hands tied behind his back, a cutlass pressed against his throat. I’ll give it to him, he’s no dastard, Christ, as brave as it gets, that cur. He’s cursing them, with his head tilted up. Nose any higher and it’s poking at God’s arsehole. They laugh and even their laughter is ugly, like choking around a bone. My hands clench around my bow. Were I to miss, Capon’s dead : were I to hit, he’s dead too. There’s two of those whoresons, and I have but one bow and two arms. And I’m not as sharp with it as Capon is. I wonder if he’d help or turn tail, were our situations reversed. I don’t really know why I wonder - he certainly would scuttle. I don’t account to much, in his world: I'm a pair of hands like any other, but any other hasn't roughed up his weasel face. So I'm probably an even less valuable pair of hands.
I crouch and make myself very, very small. It’s late, but still bright. When they sleep, I’ll rescue him. If they kill him, I’m dead too. My throat constricts and my guts feel heavy. I sometimes felt like that when Pa’ looked at me with tight eyes, when I had messed something up, but this is worse.
They push Capon down and he starts cursing again, but there’s no one around, no one but me, and they don’t gag him. I wonder what they’re up to, and then I wonder no more when they push him down, face first into the forest’s bed. They’ll do to him what they wanted to do to Theresa, the only thing they’re good for. I close my eyes. Hans starts thrashing around, I hear it. He’s still shouting, threatening them. They bark in laughter. Hans cries out, I open my eyes, they ripped the bottom of his pants in their haste.
I don’t want to watch but something compels me. My hand now trembles around the hilt of my sword, poking at my ribs. Capon shouts when one of the Cuman breaches him. I hear the armour rattling and I hear my lord’s taunts turn into howls. Then I only hear the armour, clink, clink. I’m surprised when I hear Capon crying, though I should not be. It sounds rough, pained, enraged. He’s fighting it, thrashing around, the Cuman falls on his haunches, I get one distant glimpse of what’s between his legs, dark, red. My mouth waters with nausea.
The second Cuman is not wearing armour. He dives onto Capon in silence, and now all I hear are the pained little sighs coming out of his mouth, muzzled by the ground. His head is pushed down, his hair pulled on. He whines, and after this it’s just silence, again. I hear Capon sob and it pierces through me, fierce. I don’t like him that much, but I suppose I could, given time. I rarely wish harm. I'm neither petty nor cruel, and this is spectacular harm. I clasp my hands together and pray that they don’t kill him. I mumble a couple of Ave Marias, a pair of Pater Nosters. I try to focus on them. The sounds I hear are not sounds I can deal with. It’s horror. This Cuman fucker has the audacity to moan - as if that's sex he's having. I hear Capon beg, beg for them to stop, beg for them to take his mouth instead. I shiver with disgust - the idea would never had occurred to me. They laugh, and I see the Cuman bring his fist down, beating Capon into silence, grabbing at his hair to bash his head into the ground the way you’d knock at a privy door when you're about to shit your braies.
The Cuman grunts, fucking animal, then I suppose he spills. He pulls back and walks to the fire, and starts eating as if nothing had happened. They laugh together and he clasps his hand over his comrade’s shoulder. Comrades, aye. Capon’s body is motionless but for little wracked shivers. He growls when the armoured Cuman pisses on him, howling with laughter. He stops growling when he’s kicked repeatedly in the sides, he rolls on his back, I see the white of his skin peaking between his pourpoint and his ruined pants. They bind his mouth. I suppose the screaming is only fun for a while.
I curl onto myself and I wait for nightfall. I feel like crying too, and isn't that just odd.
-
I slowly crawl to their camps, once I’m sure they’re asleep. I put my hand on the first Cuman’s mouth and slit his throat with great force. Capon has noticed me. His eyes grew big but he kept completely silent. I approach the second Cuman and deal with him in the same way. I sit down as they gargle their last fucking breaths. And then, again, it’s silence.
“Thanks are in order, I suppose,” Capon simply says when I take his gag off, his voice hoarse, his head turned away. I roll him over and slice the ropes around his hands. He tries to sit and winces, turning to lay on his side. I can’t look at him, so I don’t.
A nauseating amount of time passes. I feel paralysed yet go through the Cumans’ belongings, snatching what I deem valuable. I find a pair of pants. Cuman pants, baggy and oddly coloured. Then a tunic, with crude animals galloping on the sleeves in indigo threads. Capon still lays on his side. There's carnage between his thighs. He breathes slowly, almost as if he were asleep. He smells like shit, piss and blood. The earth will swallow him if I don't pull his hand. Poor fucking cunt, Christ. I take a huge sip of schnapps, a biblical flood even.
“You reek, sir. Had a bad fall? Clean yourself up.” It's my voice, but it's not my voice. It comes from somewhere else.
“Grand, coming from you,” Capon says. I hear the smile on his voice but it's the type of smile that bares the fangs of cornered beasts.
“Here, moonshine, water, ‘chief. And clothes, Christ. My monthly wages, in tatters, aye?” I've no fucking idea what in Satan's flaming hell I'm even saying. It's out of my mouth like vomit.
“You wish. Three, more like,” Hans answers, rolling on his back, raising his legs and then I turn my head and just hear him groan in pain, low, then high-pitched, defiant, then defeated, arrogant then utterly and completely humiliated. I think in a way it’s good that I’m ordering him around right now. I squat and look at my hands in the darkness, behind me torches flicker : shadows squirm on the ground.
He gets dressed and up and I get up too. His face is scratched raw, thunderbolts of blood on bruises and soil. His eyes are pale, dead under heavy lids. He opens the span of his arms and turns on himself, once. He smiles at me - blood still lines all of his teeth - but I can't smile back.
“How do I look?” Capon asks, and I understand him, suddenly and utterly. In my heart I comprehend: my cruelty will be a balm. And he knows that I know, but we can play pretend. I'm glad he does not confront me. I'm an awful liar. I fancy myself a sinner, for a beat.
“Shit, if I may say so, my lord, forgive me. Not your colours, and the cut isn't flattering,” I say, cheerful as a burial. And I give him a smile because he wishes for one, I see it in the arrogant line of his nose and the pitiful line of blood under it. In truth the Cuman garbs suit him just fine, better than them, bastards.
“I wonder why I even bother with your opinion, peasant.”
Capon's eyes flutter and his brow is wet with brewing fever. Sweat ploughs through the blood and draws stripes across his bitten lips. My hand tightens on our torch.
I don't know how I would act, were I in his shoes. Maybe I'd act the same. I think I might just have ran away, but I'm not tied to a castle like he is. They could hang Sir Capon face-down from the tower walls, he already wears yellow, he's a living coat of arms. I'm a living puddle, and I could disappear into any old rainstorm. His yellow pourpoint lies discarded by the campfire, gold from embers and piss. A trampled flag, it certainly is.
Capon walks funny but it's not very funny. I wish it were. He limps to the Cumans’ tack, produces a dagger and I watch him crouch to cut their ears. It's no sixteen-points antlers but it crowns the hunt, in a way. Then I wish I had turned my head around on time to not witness this: he plunges the dagger through the Cuman's eye - it sounds hard - and then he does it a second time and it sounds very soggy and I dry-heave, my hand flying to my mouth as I curl up. He leaves the dagger there and gets up, stumbling all the way to me.
“You'll buy yourself a pie,” Capon grimaces, grabbing my wrist and putting the four ears in my palms. I recoil from his touch and stuff them on instinct on my belt pouch, before I can think it over.
“Let's get us home, aye? Some luck and we won't miss breakfast,” I say, under my breath. My voice is always a bit deep but it is now a proper graveyard.
“Hanush will give me shit, Christ, that fat old peacock. We're not even bringing a couple of hares.”
“At least we're bringing our sorry arses. Let's call it a night.”
“I'm leaving mine behind, I fear,” Capon jests half-heartedly, mostly to himself I think, and I offer him one quarter-hearted chuckle and feel like puking all over my boots. He cackles a bit and I’ve rarely heard anything that unsettling in my life - and by Christ, my Lord, have I heard things. I give my shoulder, he accepts it and slings his weight on me, we get going, unassured footsteps and pained groans. It goes without saying - we don't talk much. We sleepwalk, in a way.
-
This awful fucking joke sometimes play in my nightmares, spoken from his red and black mouth, and it was the only time he ever mentioned what had happened. Needless to say, I never brought it up again either.
Against all odds Hans and I slowly became friends. I don't think he really had friends before, and no one but me noticed that he left more than just his arse behind, he also left a little bit of the blue from his eyes.