Scarlet – the red rage
William and Amos Scathlock's father was a thief. Will could hardly remember him.
When he had been six, Bruce Scathlock was hanged. The only thing Will ever got from his father was his name and the hatred for the Normans ruling the country.
After that, Meggie Scathlock tried to get along on her own with her sons. They moved from place to place through the north and the middle of England. Meggie took any work she could get.
Her sons became real bullies. Both had inherited their father's spirit and quick temper.
Amos was the one who always knew when it was enough, when to best get out of a fight. Will never cared. He was controlled by the red rage, his quick temper.
Then Meggie found work at an alehouse in Lichfield. For the first time Will could remember they stayed in one place longer. The landlord liked Meggie. He offered to make one of her sons his heir if Meggie married him.
Meggie agreed.
Amos was to become the landlord one day. He was content with it.
But within Will lived his father's restless spirit.
Barely old enough, he ran away to become a soldier.
He always found it difficult to accept orders from higher ranks, to subordinate. More than once he was punished.
On the other hand his masters realized what a brilliant fighter Will Scathlock was.
Give him a spear, he would fight with it.
If the spear broke, he took the sword.
If he lost it, he fought on with the dagger.
If they took the dagger from his hands, he fought on bare-handed.
The king always needed soldiers for his campaigns in France.
Nine years Scathlock was a soldier. First under King Henry, then under King Richard.
Nine years he suffered like thousands of other soldiers in the summer heat, got stuck in the mud in spring and autumn and nearly froze to death in winter.
Scathlock saw many things he hated and some he liked. Still he appreciated a good, clean fight on the battlefield: two armies standing opposite each other, killing each other like civilized people.
Plunderings and rapes, which he saw only too often during these years, disgusted him. His love for his Norman masters didn't grow.
Some would have liked to see him taking the cross, following his king to the holy land; but Will had grown tired.
After having moved on and on for all of his life he thought it was about time to arrive somewhere.
He wanted to go home.
He just didn't have any idea where 'home' was.
His first place to go was Lichfield. Here he learned that his mother and her husband had died of a fever some years ago. He could have stayed in Lichfield but he didn't want to.
Aimlessly he wandered around, lived off his saved guerdon, living in hope to reach some place that would feel like home.
Mayday in a small village in Nottinghamshire.
He sat at one of the tables that had been set on the village green. He put his elbows on the table and closed his eyes.
"Will you dance with me?"
A clear and friendly voice. When he opened his eyes, he saw golden curls and bright blue eyes. A piece of the ring of ice around his heart melted.
"Come on!" She smiled.
They danced.
After the dance he asked for her name.
"Elena," she answered.
"That's a wonderful name. Sounds like music."
He told her that in France he had heard about minstrels singing so beautifully that all other things paled in comparison to it.
"Ev'rything except your eyes," he said.
They danced the whole evening.
When the feast was over they kissed for the first time.
Will had finally come home.
They married in autumn. It was a small, simple ceremony. Amos came over from Lichfield. Elena didn't have any family. They had all died when Loxley had been destroyed some fourteen years ago.
Will was the proudest man in the world. Suddenly the world seemed full of opportunities for him. Elena taught him how to grow vegetables, how to use a plough, how to create instead of destroying.
Sometimes he looked at her, full of pride and joy and wonder that a woman like her wanted him of all people. It was a miracle to him.
Sometimes he worked as a guard for merchant's caravans travelling the whole of England, but he didn't want to be away from her for too long. He always rushed back to her.
Sometimes his quick temper still overcame him. Then a quiet "Will!" or "Will, please!" from her was enough to calm him down again.
Winter came for the first time not as an enemy for Scathlock. This winter was the time to huddle together with his wonderful wife in front of the fire, making plans.
Next spring, next summer. Scathlock thought his restlessness would come again some time, would drive him on, but nothing happened.
He loved Elena more each day.
Autumn began again; soon it would be winter.
They decided to go to Nottingham for the market of St. Martin. Especially for this occasion Elena sewed new clothes for her Will. A new tunic of undyed linen, a light-brown leather jerkin and brown leather trousers.
When he put them on, she laughed, saying he looked like a nobleman. She would have to be careful not to let him slip away, because every woman in Nottingham would be after him. He laughed, closing his arms around her, spinning her around.
The day of St. Martin's market dawned, bright and clear and cold. In Nottingham they bought hot pasties and shared a jar of ale. He brushed the crumbs from her lips with one finger.
He bought her red ribbons for her golden hair. She laughed and kissed him right in the centre of the marketplace.
When it got dark and cold they left. They were tired after a wonderful day and there were still several miles to walk.
For a moment Will considered staying overnight at an inn but Elena didn't want to. She was scared of thieves.
So Will took their basket in one hand, his wife on the other, and they left.
Only a few miles from Nottingham they met the men. Drunken mercenaries of the worst kind. Scum like the ones Will knew from the battlefields of France. Elena got close to him for protection.
"I'm scared," she said.
They hurried on.
The mercenaries jeered, spurring on their horses to follow them. Will knew they couldn't escape. They were on foot and these men were mounted. He cursed himself for having left his sword at home. He had thought he wouldn't need it.
He drew the dagger, pushed Elena behind him, and prepared to fight.
Alone against six men.
They launched at him. They knocked the dagger out of his hand. Desperately he fought on with his bare hands. He drew Elena to him wanting to protect her with his own body.
They took her from him.
Elena's screams echoed in his head. Three of them held him, beating him. He didn't know he was screaming.
When they were done with her they mounted their horses. Again and again they spurred their animals over her body cheering when a hoof hit her.
At last they got bored of their cruel game. They pushed Will aside and rode on towards Nottingham.
Will crawled to his wife. Snot and tears ran down his face; his blood and her blood ran together while he lay on his knees, holding her body in his arms, rocking back and forth.
Again and again he whispered her name; her beautiful name.
The red rage came again.
He saw and heard nothing of the real world while his wife's screams and the laughter of these swine sang a cruel melody in his head.
Strangers came; they wanted to take her from him. He snarled and screamed like a mad dog when anyone got too close, stabbing blindly with his dagger.
Two whole days he kneeled in the dirt on the road, her body in his arms.
Finally they couldn't find any other way than hitting him over the head with a club.
When Will regained consciousness, he lay in a priest's house. His wounds had been tended.
Friendly people had washed and combed Elena and laid her in the village's small church.
Will barely noticed her burial.
His anger, his pain and his fear lay before his eyes like a red mist.
He quarrelled with God.
They tried to calm him, telling him that Elena had found her peace.
He didn't want to listen.
He didn't sleep any more for every night in his sleep, he heard again the cruel melody of her screams.
He started to drown his anger in ale; it choked the cruel melody.
It didn't choke the red rage.
He changed his name. He was Scarlet. Red like his anger and his hatred.
Two month later he was sitting in a cheap alehouse in Nottingham when the mercenaries came in.
He recognized them immediately.
The red rage overcame him.
With an uncontrolled scream he launched himself at the mercenaries, his dagger drawn.
The first one he got unprepared. The man didn't even realize what hit him.
The second one he slew with a stool.
When they tried to hold him down he went at the third one's throat with his bare hands. He broke his neck.
When he was about to launch himself on the fourth one, a troop of soldiers from the watch entered the alehouse. They were led by a young, blonde, blue-eyed knight.
Will was taken. The knight hit him, shouted at him what this riot meant.
Will didn't say anything. He regretted nothing. Except perhaps that he hadn't managed to kill all of them.
He was bound and brought before the sheriff. He waved them off. The decision was made already; after all there had been more than enough witnesses: death by hanging. In the meantime, he was brought to the dungeon.
Will didn't mind. No feeling from outside got through the red mist.
One day others were brought in. A young man and a boy.
The boy's panic pierced through the red mist.
"The devils will come!" the boy cried. For the first time in a long while Scarlet searched for words to calm somebody else down. Apparently he found them.
Then he looked at the young man. Green eyes returned his gaze, piercing right down to the bottom of Will's soul.
The cruel melody in his head fell silent.