But there's a commotion from somewhere within the market, like a royal hunt charging through a wood. The people part, and four bear wards pass, dragging their beast. It lumps along towards the furthest market stone.
"Come on!" says Adam, jumping to his feet. I follow as he weaves through the quickly gathering crowd. They wounded the bear in taking it. It bleeds from both forefeet, on the pads. It sits before the standing stone, curled and chained, licking its wounds, brushing behind each ear. It moves as though alone in the woods, but within its thicketed face the eyes are fixed, wholly aware.
The dogs are coming.
They're banddog mastiffs, kept always strapped to keep them from other animals and from men. There doesn't look to be much strength in their flanks or hindquarters but the muscle of their necks is knotted oak, with leather sacks pulled over their heads and drawn tight around the throat. The sight or smell of bear must be kept from them. The dogs are tied to cords much longer than the bear's chain. They can pull back when they choose, as the bear cannot. As they approach him, the bear stops his pretence of cleaning, sits on his hindquarters, and moans.
He wasn't wounded in the taking, I see now. They injured him intentional, to give the dogs some assurance of survival. The bear's not meant to live through the day, and so they've sliced and twisted the pads 'neath his claws to make every blow hesitant... These handlers know their work. Once the dogs are past and the length of their cords is clear, the crowd draws in and my view vanishes behind shoulders, hoods, coifs...
Can you see? Adam says. I can. I shift as though I've been pushed, unawares, and firmly, against Adam. The hoods are whipped from the dogs like moths. The banddogs roar... Adam is pressed full well against
me and they release the dogs.
From where I crouch, the dogs seem near as big as the bear. The bear's backed against the stone, not
bigger than a medium man, shifting on his feet, jerking his head as though to shake off water. ...All
that I want is to see. The dogs strike the bear, one at the legs to drag him down, one at the chest - or is it the throat?
...Tell me, I say.
Wait, now, he says. He's barely heard me and he stares over my head, sweat on his cheeks. Wait, now, he
says, and he's a hundred leagues away.
I can hear when it is over. The crowd breaks like a pond's splintering ice. There's one dog dead and one dying and bear wards drag away the corpse of the bear. They wear brown leather jerkins and black ribbons at the crowns of their hats. They drag the bear by the hind legs towards a cage in the back of a cart, leaving a stream of blood from its throat. The
ground where the dogs fought for purchase is torn in arcs, like quarter moons.
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