by Katy Moran
I smile at him. “Of course they will, and so they should.” We don’t want Orhan’s men to think we’ve a grain of sense: to them, we must seem no more than a pair of green young fools, puffed up with our own worth.
Cenry’s dark eyes light up with the kick of it. “You’re just as crazed as everyone says. What if they choose to kill us straight off?”
“They shan’t do that. It’ll do them no good to kill outsiders without asking questions first. Anyhow, they’ve been on the run forty years – do you really think we could get near an Elmet-set camp without them knowing? They’ve more than likely spotted us already.”
The Elmet-set have seen us now. I know it.
The wood shore has risen up to meet us, trees nibble at the fringe of the moor. I’m glad of the shade, for the sun’s high and it’s hot. High above us a lone bird circles, drifting, calling mournfully.
“A curlew,” Cenry says, handing me his waterskin. I drink. “How many men watch us, do you think?”
He hears sharp, does Cenry, but not so keen as me. I close my eyes. It’s easier when I can’t see. There’s the curlew again, keening her sorrow. I hear the rubbing chatter of the little, many-legged creatures in the grass, the hissing soar of the wind that scatters white puffs of cloud about the sky like sea-foam, and the water-song rising up from the stream at our backs.
I hear my heartbeat, and Cenry’s. I hear Maelan’s – deeper, slower – and Fleet’s. There’s a jumble of others. It’s like when the village folk drum at the time of apple harvest, calling to their old gods, and Leofric the priest can do naught but sulk in his church.
“Three.” I spur Maelan on. “Three men. None on horseback. Two behind us, in that jumble of rocks, I think, and one somewhere near that mere. All archers, too, I’d wager.”
Cenry grins, glancing over at the brownish smear of water to our right. It’s flanked by gorse. “Do you know,” he says, “I think I feel a yen for a swim, so hot it is.”
I laugh. “Come, they’re not fools. They’ll ken we’re playing with them if we do aught like that. Let’s go and have done with it.” The last time I was sprung, I finished a slave. I’d be lying if I said I was glad at walking into another such trap.
They follow us all the way to the wood shore, and I’ve not seen skill to match it. Nearly as sneaksome as I am, are these Elmet-set. How easy shall it be to fox them? We pause, very swift, just as the trees thicken. The wood’s too quiet – all the sound has drained away, just as it does when I hunt deer. They are all around us. I can hear the soft rush of their breath, the beating of their hearts, though not a leaf stirs. Oho, they are good, these Elmet-set rebels. Very good. Cenry hears it, too; he grips Fleet’s reins a mite tighter, and the lines of his face grow harsher, the colour draining away, leaving him a shade paler, his dark freckles standing out clear. I love this: I love the thrill of paying out a trick, of reining in my fear.
Every shred of flesh and bone in my body screams at me to turn Maelan and ride out of this cursed wood as if the devil himself were at our backs.
But I don’t.
Cenry glances my way, his face bright with a great, wicked smile. He leans back in the saddle as though he’s not a care, and starts to sing that north-country song of Edge’s: “Oh, I forbid you, maidens all, that wear gold in your hair, to come or go by the western wood, for young Tam Lin is there—”
With a sudden rush I feel a jab of pain in my arm, and I know Cenry has it, too, for I hear him hiss, “Jesu – we’re elf-shot, Cai, this is no work of man.”
Head swimming, I look down and see a thumbnail-sized iron arrowhead bedded deep in my flesh just below the elbow, dark blood seeping all around it. And I think how crazed these Anglish are, with their ungodly beliefs in the elvish kind – but my thoughts do spin about in my head, and I keep no hold on them, and everything is going black, just as it did when Thales the Knife scrobbled me.
I have really done it now.
Ah, Christ, but my head aches. It feels as though my skull is being slowly crushed, only when I cry out, putting up my hands, there’s nothing there. I’m lying on my back in a dark place. It smells of wood, and wood-smoke, like every Anglish hall I’ve been in, but there’s a clean, clear edge to the air. A silvery line of light streams from a gap in the wall, most of it covered by what looks like an old blanket, nailed across. Wringing my head to the right, biting down so I don’t cry out in pain, I see Cenry lying beside me, flat out as though he’s been smacked in the face with the anvil in Garric’s smithy. He’s breathing, though. I’ve not killed the heir of Mercia, thank God. I wish Wulf had sent me away with Edge instead – less of a mither – but that would do no good, now I think on it. Edge is the heir to all Britain, and much I’d want to be looking after him. I laugh, even though the ache in my head’s making my guts churn. Another crazed-up mess you’re in, Ghost.
I lift my right arm, wanting to look at the wound, but my left comes with it. My hands are tied at the wrist. Oh, I love this. Even so, I can see my elbow still. The arrowhead’s gone, whatever it was, and there’s a strip of linen bound around my arm, stained dark with blood. Say what you will, Cenry, I’d wager the elf-kind do not bind up the wounds of their mortal victims.
My throat is dry with thirst, and I’m burning with the need to piss. I haul myself up onto my knees, turning towards the rush of cool air. There’s a door in the wall behind me, just another gap really, tacked over with a heavy woollen rug, like the window. With a sigh, I lean next to it, elbowing the rug out of my way.
Mary, Mother of God. The Elmet-set do not build their halls like anyone else, that’s sure enough. I’m fairly sure no other folk have them up in trees, to start with. The forest floor falls away beneath me, a blur of leaf mould and bracken far below. Leaning out a touch, I see the trunk of a great oak, wrinkled and ridged with age. Ripple-edged leaves do fan out all around me, shook by the wind, as though I stand in a shower of green rain. I can just make out another such shack as this, cloaked in the branches of an old elm.
I know not why, but it makes me smile. It’s just what I should have done, were I the king of a rebel tribe. It’s the way of the Ghost.
It’s cursed hard to piss with both hands tied together, but I do it anyhow.
I lie back down on the thin blanket, my head throbbing as the song of the forest whispers all around. It sings me back to sleep.
Twelve pairs of eyes fix us hard. I kneel, keeping my own on the floor. There is a hole the size of a coin in the boards, and I can see the blur of the forest floor, far below. At the least, they’ve had the grace to take off our blindfolds now. They take no chances, these Elmet-set.
“So.” The girl’s voice is hard, light and dry, like wood washed up on the beach, scorched by salt and sun. “What do you come here for?” She speaks Anglish but with a strange, rushing edge that reminds me of water falling over rocks. It’s odd, but the men all keep their tongues, letting the girl do the talking. They are a lean, sun-browned folk, dark-haired, rust-tinged, and every last one of them black-eyed like Cenry and me. All the Elmet-set have strange, swirling patterns graven on their faces, a blue-grey colour, like the sea on a hot day. Wynn’s old mother has these marks, too, and Cam’s uncle, but I’ve never seen so many marked folk in one place. It gives them an otherworldly look. It was hard not to stare, at first.
“We come here to see Orhan, your chief.” Cenry speaks western British, like his mother, and it’s like hearing someone talk underwater, so thick and strange it sounds.
From beneath my lashes, I watch the girl’s face change. The slight, mocking smile slips from her lips, but her brow lifts very slight, in surprise. She’s only about the same age as Edge. Her thin brown fingers lie still in her lap. “Much chance you have of that,” she replies, in British.
Just hearing the rushing, song-like words reminds me sharp of Tasik. Cenry opens his mouth to speak again – fool. Sometimes it is best to let others do the talking.
But the girl slips in before him: “Orhan is beyond
your reach now, whoever you may be. My father is in the ground a moon and more, and his soul with Christ, God keep him.”
I look up, and quick. It’s as well. They would grow uneasy if we let such news wash over us. She is telling the truth. There is no shadow of a lie about the girl, and I should know. Cenry bows his head low, and I follow him. I wonder what took Orhan to the grave: fever or wound? Strange it is that a king may be laid low just as surely as the merest thief.
“My lady,” Cenry says. “Take our sorrow, and the sorrow of my father and his also.”
The girl lifts her shoulders a touch, a faint smile playing about her mouth.
The faces of the eleven men sitting around us do not change: hard they are, like old grey rock. But the air’s alive now, thrumming: Cenry’s got them on a hook.
“I thank you,” she replies, her words laced with mockery. “But tell me, who might your father be, and your grand
father, and why should I care for their sorrow?”
Cenry looks up, treating her to one of the finest smiles in all his great armoury. Eyes warm, a great spoonful of grievous pity – not bad, my friend, not bad at all. Even I could not do better than that. “My grandfather,” he says, “is Penda, King of Mercia, and I come here with my foster-brother to drink the age-old pledge of honour between Mercia and the Elmet-set. Only now, of course, I see that it is with you, my lady, that we must raise a cup, given that noble Orhan is dead. May I have the honour of your name? Mine is Cenred, House of Mercia.”
“Of all the brazen insolence. You cannot let this pass, Llineth.” It’s one of the younger men who speaks, more of a boy, really – senseless. A deep, wine-red flush floods his face all the way down to his neck, but he fixes his gaze somewhere on the wall facing him, just as the others do.
No one moves, but the air thickens like porridge left too long over the fire.
For all the girl’s cool edge, she’s riled now, I can see it: her pupils widen and she taps one finger against her leg, very slow. “Where are your manners, Yfelys?” She smiles faintly, turning back to Cenry. “Now that you have been given a gift of my name, we shall drink to the memory of my father, and I will think on this age-old pledge you speak of.”
I’ll leave that to Cenry. I know my errand here, and now who to chase it with: Yfelys, the foolish kinsman of Llineth, Queen of the Elmet-set.
Though we go everywhere blindfolded, I counted the steps from the bottom of that cursed rope ladder that bucks and swings as you do climb down, and I know we walked southerly a score of paces through thick, clinging undergrowth before we came here. I heard the heartbeats of gathered horse-folk too, and smelled their sweet, warm breath drifting on the night air from the east. They must keep their horses corralled somewhere near here – Fleet and Maelan, too, I’m sure.
The noise of folk talking and laughing grew louder till it rang in my ears, and when I could smell their closeness, the sweat of close-packed bodies and cooked meat and honey-wine, I reached out swift with one hand and felt my fingers trail over a flap of tanned leather as we passed from the night’s chill into warmth, and light. So they live in tents, as well as high up in the trees, these folk. When they took off our blindfolds, I saw that word must have got about, for no one stared as Llineth and her men bore us off to sit on a spread of skins and bolsters piled about the embers of a fire.
Now I sit listening, blank-faced, as Cenry talks sweetly to Llineth and her men about Orhan’s great loyalty to Mercia, and King Godsway’s hard-headed foolery.
“Orhan,” Cenry says, smiling, “had the sense to know that while Godsway is High King in name, my grandfather – and Mercia – truly holds the reins of power on this island. Who can deny it?”
Llineth smiles too, her eyes cast down. “Whoever did would be a fool.” But I know she is afraid, and most likely longing to prove herself against this new threat. I can feel the unease drifting from her men, too. It is not good: folk do daft things in haste, like take hostages. Or lives.
Wulf told me we should get out the moment I felt this way. But if we did, everyone would say Cenry and I were afraid.
Either way, my place is not here sitting amongst Llineth’s men, watching her spar with Cenry. He does well enough by himself. They barely pay any heed as I slip away.
I see Yfelys, standing in the shadows, alone at the far end of the tent. I am a sparrowhawk with her prey in sight; I am a hound with the blood-thirst for deer. I am by his side in a moment, moving swift and quiet through the throng. Yfelys does not see me straight away; I did not want him to. I need the gift of his surprise. I stand right at his side without him even knowing. I can do anything: I am the Ghost. I feel my own power, my own strength running hot through my veins. I wait a moment before speaking. “Your uncle must have held her in high price.” I glance at Llineth. “Most would say ruling’s better work for a man. Some other of Orhan’s kin would have done as well, surely.”
To his worth, Yfelys hides his shock well. And he’s not fool enough to pretend I don’t speak of him. “What concern is it of yours, Mercian?”
I shrug, and turn to him, giving him the full force of my gaze. I’m such a hopeless sinner to enjoy this so much. “None, but I’m no Mercian.”
Yfelys turns and looks at me true for the first time, his eyes settling on the fine-wrought gold brooch holding together my cloak. “What? You come here with a Mercian atheling; you wear the mark of the boar at your throat.” He gives me a sarcastic smile. “I take it you’re from Kent.”
“No. Northumbria.” I look away, taking a long draught of the thin warm ale in my cup. “I am a hostage.” Now I’ve got him. I feel the quiver of interest. But a few hours since, Yfelys made a fool of himself before his cousin and all her men. I’m giving him the chance to rebuild his honour. Well, I’m not really. I’m selling him down the river, but he need not know as much yet.
“A most trusted hostage.” Yfelys says, lifting one eyebrow. “And one that speaks British, too.”
“Most trusted.” I repeat. I fix my eyes on Yfelys’s: his are the smooth brown of a hazelnut shell, flecked with green lights. I have him. I feel a smile slide across my face, slippery as warm oil. “My lord Wulfhere is a fool – a fool to let his addle-pated old father spar with the High King, and a fool to fight the north.”
“They – they say there’ll be a battle between Mercia and Northumbria before the year’s done.”
“Ay, there will be,” I whisper, “and we shall take the wind from Mercia’s sails then, shall we not?”
I could finish Cenry now. It would be easy to kill him here. Llineth has half a mind to serve us an ill turn as it is. And if Cenry were dead, Thorn would never be his. The thought jerks across my mind quicker than a spider.
Yfelys forgotten, I glance across the tent at my foster-brother, sitting among Llineth’s men. I just see him through the fug of thick wood-smoke, the press of folk. His head is thrown back in laughter, his face flushed by the fire.
He is my friend. Sometimes I frighten myself – why do such wicked ideas come to me so easily?
“My uncle waited years for the chance to cut loose from Penda.” The sound of Yfelys’s voice tugs me back to the smoke-skeined warmth of the tent. There’s a glimmer of a fire at the backs of his eyes now. “Llineth may be above herself for a wench, but at least she’s the sense to send word to Northumbria: the High King has only to raise his finger, and we’ll ride to his banner when the time comes for a fight.”
Oh, I do thank you, Yfelys, from the lowest reaches of my heart, for I know all I need to.
We are back in the tree-top house, I thank Christ Cenry knows how to hold his drink. Cups and cups of wine he drank with Llineth and her men this night, but from the look of him he may just as well have been on his knees at prayer in the god-house. I squeeze his shoulder and he sits up, pushing back his hair. The amber beads hanging around his neck glitter quietly in the moonlight. We exchange a glance. All is quiet. Holding a finger to my lips I lean across and peer out of the door, down to
the dark forest floor below.
They have not set a guard at the bottom of the ladder, but there shall be someone at watch; I would bet my immortal soul on it. But there is no choice. We must get out of here: Cenry doesn’t think Llineth will have us killed but we’re both agreed she’s not above selling us to Northumbria. Saying nothing, I gather my saddlebag and strap it around my waist; Cenry does the same. He grins at me, eyes glinting in the darkness, and I close my fingers around his wrist, tight, mouthing: Follow.
I feel naked climbing down the rope ladder; every speck of my skin prickles with unease. The ladder swings, sways. I move as fast as I can. I do not like this but there is no other way of doing it. I thought of leaping to the big wych-elm next to the oak and then on, and on again, just as I used to flit between roof-tops in Constantinople. Although I grew up among sun-baked buildings and dark, vine-choked alleyways, I could just about trust myself not to rustle a sheaf of leaves, or crack a branch. But not Cenry. He’s good at hunting, at trailing, but not so good as me. I hear the heartbeats of the men they’ve got on guard now – no more than thirty paces away, I’d lay anyone a bag of coin. I think of nothing: I am not here. But all they must do is look around and they’ll see Cenry.
I’ve done it: I’m on the ground. Quick, quiet, I step back to let Cenry down. Good, good, he doesn’t make a sound, and he’s the sense to breathe slowly, too. I know he’s behind me; without looking back I run, streaking through the trees, my heart singing with the thrill of it, listening with every shred of my body for the sound of an iron dart slicing through the air, or another set of footfalls.
They’ve got a man watching the horse-folk. I see them in the clearing ahead, Maelan and Fleet among the Elmet-set horses – roans they are, and dappled greys, slim, fast-looking beasts, each one. Most are sleeping. The horse-guard sits with his back to us, leaning against the trunk of a great pine tree. I turn to look at Cenry. His eyes are wide.