The Reluctant Berserker by Beecroft Alex

Author:Beecroft, Alex [Beecroft, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2014-02-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Leofgar woke in the cold hour of dawn, in the empty hall where he had sung for his supper the evening before. A small town had grown up around the nunnery, to ease the holy sisters’ dealings with the outside world—farm their lands, keep their buildings in repair, sell the wine and beer they brewed, and house some of the many pilgrims on the way to the abbey.

To these townsfolk he had given both simple fare and fine—the riddles for them to roar over with ribald laughter, and a snatch of the tale of Grendel so that they would shiver with delighted dread as they went to their beds. Their enjoyment warmed his heart and got beneath his skin, gilding his bones. They’d laughed and listened, and pressed the best of their food and the headiest of their ale on him, and he’d felt like a king. And this morning he had wakened in the ashes of last night’s fire, remembering that he was little more than a beggar.

Brushing the dust of the floor from his hair, he leaned over the firepit to break open the mound of ashes he had raked together before sleeping. In there, a few embers glowed reluctantly at him. It was enough so that, piling on kindling and a couple of faggots, he soon had the fire leaping once more.

The nuns had offered him another cell in the infirmary, but they had looked reluctant about it, since he was hale. So he had turned the offer down and gone where his unholy tales would bring him a welcome.

The folk had been glad of him for a night. They might be glad again if he stayed one more day—but after the third day he should be gone. It did not do to stay too long when one ate but did not work.

Sighing, he dipped water from the barrel into a cauldron and set the cauldron on the hall’s hanging chain to heat over the fire. So it was back to this life, was it? Wandering from stead to stead, staying a day or two and moving on. Bringing news and novelty, and leaving before they grew stale.

He washed his hands and face in the warm water, wishing for soap, then dug some of last night’s stew from the second pot, where it had been set to cool in the corner of the firepit. Had he been wrong to choose this? When he had achieved the dream of all wandering minstrels—to be taken into a lord’s household, made his man, given his protection and his generosity, sheltered by his honour, inspired by his glory, had he been too hasty to throw it all away?

No.

He beat the dust from his cloak, then began to wind the long strips of speckled yellow tablet-weave around the arch of his foot and the calves of his legs, to support his ankles and protect his trousers from all the thorns of the wilderness. Slipping his shoes on after, he sighed again.

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