by Katy Moran
Ma sat awake all night, I think, propped against pillows, with Tecca curled up in her lap. Elflight, Asha and I dragged the rugs from our beds and sat up through the long darkness, piled together to stay warm because we had not enough firewood. Although I meant not to, I think I slept a while. I don’t know about Elflight, whether she slept or not, but it was she who said it in the morning light, leaning over the bed in her shift, resting her fingers lightly against Tecca’s pale neck. Mama, she’s gone.
But Ma said nothing: she just stared down at Tecca, stroking the fiery hair away from her forehead. And it was Elflight who sent me to get Father Tomas, and Elflight who sent Asha for the physician, to see if he might give something to Ma, even though we had no coin, because she could not stop weeping. Elflight cried, and so did Asha, but I shed not one tear. I was no longer wrought of flesh and blood, but of cold iron, or stone, and so I did not weep. Nothing mattered; there was no sense in anything.
“I can’t get her back.” Now my face is burning wet and my whole body shudders with it. My sister is dead and I will never see her again. The truth of it uncurls within me like a poison I’ve swallowed.
“It will be all right,” Anwen says, holding me. “It will be all right.” She smooths back the hair from my face, and I think of Ma. I think of how I left her, to riot through the streets of Constantinople when she was sick with grief and could not even stir from her bed. Yet when I went home with Tasik the day he came back and dragged me out of the Underworld, Ma told him the fault was all hers. She was wrong, but I will never get the chance to tell her so now. I will never be able to tell her how sorry I am.
I thought the Devil’s Cub would be angry. I thought he’d cast me out. Half a day’s travel we must have cost them, Thorn and I, tracking us across the marsh. But he just sits down at my side, leaning against the wall, and says, “What made you do something so worm-brained, you foolish brat?”
I make no reply. Sitting wrapped in the blanket, I stare down at my hands.
“Well?” says Wulf, and I see he really means me to answer.
So I tell him the whole: of my life as the Ghost, of Tecca dying, of Tasik being away such a long time, and finally of that afternoon in the Emperor Constans’s chamber, and how I ran so fast but did not deliver the message that would have saved my father’s life, the lives of my whole family. “It’s about honour,” I finish. “I as good as held the knife that killed Tasik. I can’t stay here; I’ve to learn how to fight, and one day I’ll go back and I’ll make an end to Achaicus Dassalena, and he’ll be sorry then.”
All around us, folk are sitting down to eat at the long table running down one side of the hall, but the Devil’s Cub stays by me, poking the guttering fire with a stick. For a while after I’ve fallen quiet, he toys with the embers, staring at them. Then he looks up at me, snaps the twig in half and throws it to the flames. “You tell your tale too high,” he says. “A fine sad and wicked thing it is indeed to kill one’s own father, but for one thing, it wasn’t your hand that did it, and for another, how can you tell he died?”
A wild, leaping flame of hope bursts within me. “They were going to our house,” I whisper. “Achaicus Dassalena’s men were going there that night to kill him—”
“But who’s to say they managed it?” says Wulf. “You never saw, you only dreamt of your father dead. I’m not saying dreams don’t speak truth to us at times, and it’s not my wish to raise false hopes, but you must rid yourself of the notion that Essa’s blood is on your hands. It isn’t. If he died, it was not your fault.”
“Send me back!” The words tumble from my lips like milk boiling furiously out of a pan. “Put me on a trading-ship and send me back to Constantinople – I’ll repay you the coin one day, I swear—”
“I can hardly put you on a ship, you must see that.”
“But how can you keep me here when you’ve told me he might still be alive?” I reply, my voice cracking.
The Devil’s Cub sighs. “You’re just a boy, Cai. And if I sent you back to Constantinople, the odds are your father wouldn’t be there any longer – the place had got far too hot for him as it was, by what you’ve said, and he no doubt was asking after you in all the ports. He’ll not be there, not any more. Don’t think on it again.”
“But if I go back I can ask all the boatmen and find out who might’ve taken them and where they went, and then I can follow; you must help me! I’ll never see them again if you don’t.”
The Devil’s Cub is looking angry now. He would be an easy man to swindle: he wears his every thought and feeling like a new cloak. I hope he never gambles because he would lose more coin than Demosthenes the charioteer. “I’ve given my answer,” he says. “Let that be the end of it. You shall stay here.”
And now I recall what Thorn said about being a hostage, and how we are all just gaming-pieces in a tournament of kings. “You think I’m useful because of these Northumbrians. If I want to go, I will.”
“But you’re wrong.” The Devil’s Cub smiles grimly. “I paid twenty pieces of gold for you and you’re mine to do with as I please. You’ll stay here, and if you make one move to leave this place, you’ll pay dear for it – but not so high a price as I’ll take if you steal from me again. Is this clear? My rangers have work enough without tracking a hare-brained brat through every bog and marsh he can find.”
I shrug, staring at the fire, keeping the hot coils of my rage close tight. I don’t care what he says. Never once was I caught by the city guard in Constantinople, and I’m not afraid of these rangers. If I have to take back my ring again, I will. It’s mine, after all.
“It is common, Cai son of Essa, to answer your lord when he has spoken to you.”
So I look up and say, “Oh yes, my lord, I hear you very clear.”
How dare he keep me here? After all the misery I have endured, how dare he? But I am not like my father, whose anger would fly up to the rafters like a great fiery blaze, and die just as quick.
Wulfhere of Mercia does not know it, but I burn slow, like old, seasoned oak, with a flame that will never go out once it is lit.
People
Cai, an atheling
Wulfhere of the Mercians, his lord
Anwen, Wulfhere’s wife
Cenry, their son
Thorn, a hostage
Edge, Cai’s cousin, another hostage – son of Godsway of Northumbria, High King over all Britain
Penda, King of Mercia
Garric, a smith
Wynn, his wife
Mildreth, their daughter
Leofric, a god-man
Goodlord of East Anglia, the Wolf King
Elfgift, a nun
Highrule, an atheling
Llineth of Elmet, a rebel queen
Yfelys, her cousin
Cai’s Britain c. AD 655
More than a year later: a few days after harvest, AD 655
THE GREENWOOD stills around me; the world is quiet. With my heels, I urge Maelan on, on. I reach back and draw an arrow from my quiver, hearing nothing but the thrub of my heart.
The deer stands alone among silvery beech trees, fear-
frozen, her dappled coat a rusty blur against the greens and greys of the forest. The rest of her kind have all fled, chased off by the hot din of the hunt.
My dear one, I am sorry.
I let loose my arrow. In a heartbeat, I watch it fly, then fade from my sight. One, two, three—
The young doe falls to the ground. In a rush, the forest roars into life around me once more: birds chatter, soaring away through the woven mesh of branches and leaves; a tree rat scrambles up the trunk of an oak.
“Come.” I urge Maelan closer, then dismount, pulling the knife from my belt – but as soon as I kneel at the doe’s side, it’s clear I’ve no need of it. Her eyes are dim, dusty with the leaf mould kicked up as she fell. My arrow juts from her neck, and dark blood oozes from the wound, stiffening the soft, pale hairs of her hide into spikes. I hear hoofbeats, but soft, and the crack
ing of a dry twig. Who comes? Not Hlafy, for he’s ranging in the south, hunting after rumours of treachery among the marcher-lords who rule the borderlands. Anyhow, he’s trained Shadow so well she moves more silent than her namesake. I ease my arrow from the doe’s neck, gentle, taking care not to hurt her, even though she’s dead. Wulf might have my every step watched, but I’m cursed if I’ll let anyone see it riles me. I wipe the blood-dark arrowhead on my clouts.
“That was neatly done.”
I turn, slowly.
King Penda sits astride his mare, watching me. “Aye,” he says. “Neatly done indeed. Though why do you shoot arrows like a hedge-grubbing commoner instead of throwing a spear, as an atheling ought to?”
I shrug. What do I care for being the spawn of some Northumbrian royal house when I’ve never gone anywhere near it? “My mother showed me, long ago. Wulf makes me shoot each morning – he says I’d as well not lose the skill.”
Ma’s arrows could smack the head off a nail from a hundred paces, and if I hadn’t spent my youth half a world away, laying terror to the streets of Constantinople, maybe I’d be less clumsy with a spear, too, but I choose not to share this with Penda.
He smiles, thinly, and I feel a chill slide down my spine. Penda may be Wulf’s father, yet I do not like him. “Well, boy,” he says, “do you ride with me to rejoin your lord, and we shall tell him of your bow-snatched prize.”
I mount Maelen and follow him: it is not, after all, as if I have much choice.
When we catch up to the rest they are in full chase; the forest bursts with the pounding of horses’ hoofs, the howling of dogs, the mournful cry of the horn. Penda rides hard for an old man, but Maelan’s fresh today and I know we could pass him in a breath if I were fool enough to outstep my king. Instead I hold back, and we go alongside each other, Penda and I, so close at times I can even see the liver-coloured blotches on the backs of his hands, the twisted, knobbled veins. His dried-out grey hair is whipped back from his face by the ride’s rush, the heavy plaid cloak flying out behind him like the wing of some great bird. He is lost in the chase – but I could ride rings around the old snake, if I chose.
I let the forest take me; the hunt’s thrill burns through my every fibre. Edge and Cenry do streak ahead, killing a buck between them. Their spears fly with fierce speed, like sparrowhawks tumbling out of the sky. The buck tumbles, wheeling sideways, scattering the rest of the herd around the fallen body of a hart, the greatest prize of all, and I wonder who took that. I’m amongst them all now – there’s Thorn alongside Anwen; both are flushed with the heat of the ride, and tangled hair whips about their faces, streams of copper, black. The boys from the village do howl with the joy of it: we shall have meat this night and for winter too. Wulf leans back in the saddle, yelling, laughing.
Only he does not look so full of cheer now the hunt’s done, and all are gathered about the deer corpses, making ready to heave them across the ponies’ backs. He dismounts, loping over to take my bridle. “Where have you been? I told you to stay near us. If I cannot trust you, Cai, you’ll spend the next hunt back in the village.”
Not for the first time, I wish I had never ridden off into the marsh with Thorn. It was more than a year ago, but will I ever be allowed to forget it? It’s not just that, though: Wulf has been right edgy ever since Penda came here with the last full moon, and I wish to the devil he would go away again.
Before I can speak, Penda rides up. “No, Wulfhere,” he says. “The boy has been with me, and a fine doe he took down, no more than sixty paces back. Very well I think it, the way he moves so quiet and quick, more so even than my finest ranger, I’d say.”
So he has his uses after all.
“I’m sorry,” Wulf says, smiling at me. “I’m all of a twitter today, just like an old woman. Well done, Cai. Come, take a stirrup-cup. If you’ve a thirst like mine you need it.” But there is still a strange shadow at the back of his eyes, plain as my hand, and I don’t like it at all. I have never seen him so unresty, like Ren when she’s a thorn stuck in her paw.
I can’t shake loose the feeling that something is going to happen. A year has slipped by so easily – a whirl of muddy hounds, swimming, grubbing about in the fields, horse-racing and spear-throwing. But now I’ve got this prickling sense that it’s all going to swing wild out of kilter.
“Come, Father,” Wulf says, “have some ale.” And they go, Wulf loping along, Penda hunched in the saddle. Penda does not even glance back at me, for which I’m glad. I do not love the way he looks at me sometimes, like a merchant in the market wondering what price he can get for a bolt of rare silk, or a basket of gems. Or a high-priced slave. Of a sudden, I heartily wish Penda had not seen me track that doe. I can’t escape the fear that this old snake has plans for me, and I’ve had my fill of other folk steering the course of my life.
“Cai! Are you too scared to race, or just too lazy?” Cenry is standing in his stirrups, calling over his shoulder, bright with the rush of the hunt.
“Ist tha tired, cousin?” Edge yells, laughing, which is not like him: mostly he holds himself high and aloof, cat-like, almost. And I do not blame him, because I don’t much like being a hostage, either – all my body and soul bought for twenty gold coins. Edge is a child of the High King, and his price was the devil of a lot higher.
“Ah, come on!” Thorn shouts. “Let Cai dawdle if he chooses – I’m gone!” Thorn, Cenry and Edge wheel their mounts around, stirring up a spray of leaves and mud.
I grin and lean down, whispering to Maelan, “Come on, dear heart, let’s give them a gallop.” I let them peel away and take the head. On foot, I can outrun any one of them, and I can ride faster, too, even through such a thatch of trees as this. I dig in my heels and Maelan surges forward, her ash-grey mane flying in my face as I lean into the gallop.
I am still the Ghost, after all.
Essa and Wulf
SWEAT-DAMP, streaked with thick, dark deerblood, we chase Thorn through the village and down to the river, scattering folk out of our way like skittles – but she’s already in the water up to her waist, hurling her sodden tunic onto the bank, laughing. Her skin is pearl-white, streaming wet.
“Too slow, my dears!” she calls, and lies on her back, floating.
“Off the bridge,” Edge says, and we run across flat grey riverbank stones warmed by the day’s heat. Shrieking like demons, we leap into the river, throwing up a great splattering spray. The water’s cold, sending a shock right through me. Thorn rights herself, choking and laughing, and as we swim the sun begins to sink, our summer-brown bodies twisting, tangling, shining wet. When I put down my feet, warm mud squelches between my toes and fronds of weed twine about my legs as I rub away the smears of blood and gore. It makes me laugh, the way these folk think themselves dirty only when they’re waist-deep in mud or covered in guts and blood – there’s not a bath-house on this island.
And Thorn swims a little apart from us, her hair spreading about her in the water, her pale arms glittering with beads of water. When I look at her, I feel drunk, breathless.
I turn and swim away from her.
Wulf comes down with the rest of the hunt; Cenry goads his little sisters into the water, and we duck the pair of them, too. Aranrhod shrieks, but Rhiannfel kicks Cenry so hard in the shins he swears – and the girls splash away, sending up curls of greenish-white water. Thorn gathers them close to her, their skinny, freckle-spattered shoulders hunched as they huddle together, whispering.
“Quick,” Cenry says, “they plot revenge.”
“Na,” Edge tells him. “Let them splash us or Thorn shall come up with aught that’s worse. Tha knows what a devil’s daughter she is.”
So we let them do it. Bright beads of water shine in the dying light, and our yelling and shouting tears up the peace of the old, slow river. Holding the baby, Anwen sits on the bank with Edie, Wynn and the other village women, watching over the brats too small to have their run of the water. Even Penda comes down, leaning on his stick,
and sits in a chair got for him, and watches us all as he drinks his hot wine. The sun sinks lower still, touching the river with gold, and at last Wynn shrieks because the deer-meat’s been forgot and runs to the hall with Anwen.
“Come on, Da, give us a tale,” Cenry says. The meat’s done with and the village folk have gone back to their homes. Wulf sits on the bench, leaning against the wall, and I’m piled in a heap about his feet with Cenry, Edge and Ren, his dearest of the hounds. “Give us a tale of when you were young, and rode about with the Halfling Witch – I mean, with Cai’s father.” Cenry grins at me. “Sorry – I forget sometimes where you came from.”
I feel Wulf rest his hand light on the top of my head, and I stroke the soft, silky hair behind Ren’s ears.
“We’ve had those tales more times than I can count,” Wulf says. “Does no one want to hear aught that’s new?”
He’s asking if I mind him speaking of Tasik. Across the fire, Anwen lifts her eyes a moment from combing Thorn’s tangled hair. Thorn glances at me, too – she’s holding the baby in her lap, letting him cling to her finger with his fat little hand. At my side, Edge looks away from the shard of deer-shin he’s carving shapes into with his knife. His lap is dusted with flecks of yellow-white bone. “Dost tha mind hearing it again, cousin?” he says. “There’s other tales.”
What do they think I shall do, burst out weeping? “Tell it,” I say. “It gets better each time.”
Wulf laughs. “And you, Father?”
The old snake looks away from the fire, glaring at Wulf over the rim of his wine-cup. “Ay, tell whatever you wish, although you’re a fool to repeat tales of such wild disregard for your elders. What manner of tricks do you want those boys to learn?”
“Don’t fear – I shan’t forget to tell them how sorry you made me afterwards. Now, are you ready? Aranrhy? Rhiannfel?”