by Katy Moran
We’d not thought of this: a brainless mistake. Of course the Elmet-set lay a watch to their horse-folk by night. Cenry closes his fingers around the dagger at his belt, starts moving forward. Jesu, he’s the child of the Devil’s Cub, all right. I grab his arm again, shaking my head. We need not slit the poor fellow’s throat, and God knows it would make the devil of a racket. Cenry’s never killed anyone before, and Thales the Knife always said it took rare skill to finish a man quietly. Cenry raises his eyebrows, shrugging: What else are we meant to do? I hear the thought as clear as if he’d spoke it aloud.
I hold up my hand: Wait here.
I am not here: I am nothing. You cannot hear me, guard-man. Closer, closer I creep. Maybe it would be kinder to kill him. But I’ve no time for kindness. I squat in front of the guard – a man in his middle years, a lean, dark face, thinning hair, eyelids drooping with tiredness. He wears a silver bead strung through one earlobe.
Good evening, oh my lord. His eyes flash open, wide with shock; his hand flies to the knife at his belt. But I have him. What do you start for, friend? You do but sleep. You do but dream. He slumps against the tree and I’m alive with the burning brightness of my own power.
No one can stop me; the Ghost walks once more.
I turn, beckoning to Cenry. It is long since time that we were away from here.
Three days later
THIN, SWIRLING mist rises from the ground, shrouding the trees, hiding the bracken, twisting about Fleet’s mud-spattered legs. Pale light lances down through the shifting golden leaves woven high above our heads. It’ll be warm later, but when Cenry speaks, his breath hangs on the air, a silvery cloud. “Back in time to break our fast,” he says, grinning at me. “I want fried pig-meat and a cup of cider, and hot bread.”
“I’d as lief feel my legs again.”
“Well, you’ve never ridden bareback before. You did quite well at it.” He laughs. “Da’s going to drop down in a fit when he finds out we left the saddles.”
“What choice did we have, fool?” Never mind the horse-gear – what’s Wulf going to say when we tell him the Elmet-set are ready to betray him at any moment, and we left their queen alive? It would have been of no use to kill Llineth, though. Kings and queens are like weeds: no sooner is one cut down than another springs up in her place. Better to leave Llineth wondering just what Cenry is going to tell his father than dead with a hot-blooded princeling in her place thirsty for a taste of revenge.
“I’ve no stomach for killing womenfolk, anyhow,” Cenry says, cheerfully. “Or not young, fair ones, at least. Do you look: we’re close. Last one into the yard’s a milksop.”
“You’re on.” And we race, flashing fast through the greenwood, riding hard for home.
I feel it when we’re close enough to see the great soaring roof of the hall, the new thatch glowing gold in the early morning sun – a sudden, deep chill that grips me from within.
Something is wrong: something has happened. I tug on Maelan’s mane, slowing her, and call to Cenry, but he’s too far to hear, or is not listening to me, and he’s out of my sight now, riding over the bridge by the sound of it, Fleet’s hoofs drumming against the wood.
Jesu. Go on, girl. One last gallop and we’re home. I dig my heels into Maelan’s flanks, keeping a strong leg on her, and we surge forward, the wind rushing past, freezing the bones of my face as the mist begins to lift. I do not like this; I don’t know what manner of mess we shall find at the hall but the fear of it chills me to the core.
By the time I reach the yard, Cenry’s alone there, sliding off Fleet’s back, leading her to the duck-pond in the shade of the great ash tree. I dismount, wincing at the fiery ache in my thighs, patting Maelan’s neck, letting her dip her head down to the still, greenish water for a drink.
“Where is everyone?” Cenry asks, looking like a child who’s just lost a simnel-cake.
“Hush.” I hold up one hand. They are singing matins in the god-house; the rise and fall of the chant rushes over me like water. Why must Leofric preach in Latin when not a man or woman here understands a word he says? God must seem a strange, far-away Father to the Anglish. At home, we always had preaching in Greek, and the word of Christ was among us all.
Cenry turns to me, bemusement writ all over his face. “What are they doing in the god-house? Granfer will kick up the devil of a storm.”
Maybe Penda has gone, the heathen old snake, and that’s why they’re all in church again. Maybe he’s dead.
“Come on.” I grab Cenry’s arm. We leave the horses drinking and hobble across the yard to the god-house. I’m never riding bareback again, not for a dragon’s hoard.
Cenry shoves the rickety wooden door and as it swings open, creaking on its hinges, everyone inside turns to stare. The god-house is crammed to the rafters, and I see strange faces among the villagers. Who are these people? Up on the pulpit, Leofric’s pressing ahead with the sermon, but no one pays him the slightest heed. They’re all staring at Cenry and me as if we have just come back from the dead.
“My rangers!” The crowd parts to let Wulf and Anwen by; Wulf crushes the pair of us in a hug, laughing and messing up our hair. There’s a warm note of relief in his voice but when he pulls away, I see that shadow at the backs of his eyes again, that unease.
Well, his son and heir has returned; what has my dear and only lord got to fear now? Anwen has her arms around Cenry; he pushes her away, grinning. Can he not feel there’s something wrong?
Who is that man standing by the pulpit dressed up richer than a cockerel, his fleshy face flushed with his own worth? “Well, Wulfhere,” says the stranger. “Which of these fine young men is to have my god-daughter, then?”
Suddenly, everyone seems to draw back against the walls, leaving a hollow space in the middle of the church. Everyone is staring, even Leofric, who hates being stopped when he’s in the middle of damning us all to the deepest pit of hell.
Beside me, Cenry goes whiter than new milk. Wulf lays a hand on his shoulder.
“You’re back!” It’s Thorn, stepping forward, bright-eyed with joy. She’s hand in hand with a woman I’ve never laid eyes on till now.
I have seen that face before, though, every line and curve of it, every shadow. Tall and lean she is, with high, arched cheekbones and long eyes. A strand of fiery hair hangs loose from her linen veil.
Tasik.
“Well,” the woman says, never taking her eyes off me, “why has no one told me of this? I do not think I am mistaken.”
Wulf is talking but I can’t untangle the words. I can’t breathe. The air quivers. I hear the bees humming in the orchard outside, the song of the river, one of the cattle lowing down in the flood meadow.
My heart is pounding. Can they not all hear it?
“Cai—” Wulf begins.
The woman speaks again, paying him no heed: “More than ten years it has been since I laid eyes on my child and his wife, with no manner of knowing if they even still lived—”
“Come, come, Elfgift, my dear,” says the cockerel-man, “now is not the moment for such talk.”
It is as if he has not even spoken. “And now I see Essa has brought a child of his own into this world, and no one has told me of it.” The woman pauses, drawing in a breath. “Where is my son?” Her voice is colder than the bottom of a well. “Why is this boy here, in a Mercian court, when I know his mother and father sailed for the east?”
She is my grandmother. She is Tasik’s mother. Thorn’s guardian.
She is here to see Thorn given away to Cenry.
I turn to Wulf, and the words fly from my lips: “Why didn’t you tell me? I hate you!”
A few people gasp. Thorn presses her hands to her mouth, and I hear Edge mutter, “Oh, Jesus Christ.”
I have broken another of those grim, unspoken Anglish rules: I have spoken out of turn to my lord, in full hearing of a church packed with people, and nothing else matters. I might have laid the head of the High King himself at Wulf’s feet and yet
I would still be in the wrong.
I can’t stand it. I must get out of here, away. I sprint for the door, my head spinning. The brightness of the yard stuns me, and someone pulls me up by the back of my tunic, jerking me around to face them. It’s Wulf, and I have never seen him look so angry. “Never speak to me like that again.” He slaps me hard across the face, and it feels like a splash of boiling water.
I’m so shocked I can’t breathe. How has everything gone so wrong so quick?
“You are an atheling,” Wulf says, in a low, angry voice. “I don’t wish to remind you again to behave like one. I will speak to you of this later. Go and stable your horses.”
He doesn’t even know what happened in Elmet. My heart’s racing. I feel as if the blood has turned to dark cold water in my veins. I can charm secrets from the lips of princes; I can go anywhere without being seen. If it were not for me Wulf’s dearest son would most likely be buried among the trees in the Elmet-set forest or sold to the High King as a hostage.
I hate this place; I hate these people.
I bow my head. “As you wish, my lord.” You cannot see me any more, Wulfhere of the Mercians. I step away, fading from Wulf’s sight, and the glimmer of fear in his eyes brings me joy – but with a bitter taste, a sorry taste.
“Jesu take me,” he mutters and turns sharply, stalking back into the god-house.
I lie belly-down on the branch, watching a tree-rat streak across the ground, barely seeming to touch the carpet of this year’s leaves, beech mast and old twigs. Angry thoughts boil in my head: I’ll be damned if I’m going back to the village, either to help with the threshing in the barn or to share false honey-talk with my grandmother – but I can’t help wondering what she’s like. My grandmother. Even the word sounds strange – I have never had one before, or never known one, at least. Her face haunts me; it merges in my mind with Tasik’s. I almost hear his voice, his lazy laughter as I lie gazing down at the forest floor: A right foolish mess you’ve wrought for yourself now, hothead.
I’ve always known Thorn is to marry Cenry, binding the Wolf Folk tighter to Mercia, but it’s ever been a fuzzy, far-off threat. Wulf can’t have known the Wolf Folk were coming so soon or he would have told Cenry and me before we left. But now I hate him and I can’t stop myself. My face still burns; how can I forget that manner of insult? And he keeps my ring, the only link I have to my family. He uses me to spy on the Elmet-set and now he treats me like a child.
You were not angry with Wulf at first, though. You were angry because Thorn’s people have come to see her married to Cenry, and you don’t want her to. You blamed Wulf for it.
It’s true but I can’t think about that. I can’t.
I damned nearly had my throat cut for Wulf’s sake and I am used to better payment than this for my skills. I am the Ghost; there is nothing I cannot do once I choose to, and I will not suffer such treatment. I think of the hot power that surged through me when I drew the truth from Yfelys, when all I had to do was look at the Elmet horse-guard to suck the senses clean out of his mind.
I have been a fool to stay here, a weak, senseless fool. How easily they drew me in, Wulf and Anwen, with their warm, crowded hall, their tales by the fireside, their careless kindness. But wait—
Someone is coming: I hear light footfalls, a heartbeat, too, and that of a hound, a twig cracking, dried leaves crunching. If they’ve been sent to find me they’ll look a long while. My belly is empty, and I’m so tired I could sleep for two days, but I’m going nowhere. Whoever it might be, this unseen walker, they come closer.
It’s Penda.
He lopes along, wolf-like, hunched in a dark green cloak, wiry grey hair loose about his shoulders. It’s thinning on top, and I see the pale skin of his scalp spattered with dark, liver-brown speckles. Age melts the beauty of kings just as it does anyone else but my God, I bet having the ruling of all men makes up for it. I’d wager no one has ever dared slap Penda in the face. Ren follows at his heels.
I have been frittering away my loyalty and obedience on the wrong man. After all, why serve a prince when you can serve a king? For the first time since I set foot back in Repedune, I smile, then I drop from the branch, landing in a crouch at Penda’s feet.
I’ll say this for the old snake: he doesn’t scare quickly. He does but raise one grey, straggly eyebrow, placing a warning hand on Ren’s neck as I bow down, resting my forehead on the ground. “Quiet, you foolish hound.” Penda treats me to one of his thin, bloodless smiles. “So, boy, I see you left the Elmet-set with your hide in one piece. Do you rise, and tell me how it went and what you are doing here, when the rest are all on their knees before that sap-headed fool Leofric. Did you not see fit to thank your God for a safe return?” He laughs. “Or make yourself known to your grandmother, at least?”
I get to my feet, head still bowed. Penda is cut from the same cloth as the Emperor of Thieves, and I know just how to deal with such men. “I saw fit to seek out my king, and give him the news he sent me to find.” I look up, fixing him with my eyes. “And, my lord, I’m sad to bring such news.”
Penda looks at me, sharp. He’s got Wulf’s knack of seeing straight through folk, and I don’t much like it. “Tell me what happened, and fog me with no pretty words.” His voice is cold, like the steel edge of a knife.
So we fall into step together and I give him the tale: Orhan’s death, Llineth’s plot to betray Mercia and side with the High King. “We thought it best to leave her alive, my lord, not knowing what’s to come from you.”
He nods curtly. “You did right. Let the wench stew. But the sooner I ride against Northumbria the better. Ah, for the love of the Lady, we shall come to rue the day we ever let Christian folk preach on this island.”
I feel a deep, bright thrill. I’m sharing private talk with King Penda, most powerful of all men in Britain. “Why should that be, sire?”
He turns and glares at me. “Because time was, boy, when the High King of Britain ruled by the strength of his hand, not for his obedience to some puling wretch of a God. We had our own faith, our own gods, and we trusted in the land.”
Who would have thought it? This bloodthirsty king does but long for the old ways of this island, the old, dying ways of their wild gods and the elf-kind. “Well, my lord, I beg that if there is any other way I can serve you, you shall let me do it.” There’s one in the eye for you, Wulfhere. I don’t need you when I have your father.
Penda smiles. “I shall keep that in my mind. There are not many such as you, who know the secrets of all men, and can draw the truth from the lips of liars.”
It’s good to be priced high by someone, even if it is an ill-tempered old man. If I help him, perhaps he will help me. “My lord,” I say, “why don’t you let Leofric wet your head, and spread the word that you’ve become Christian to Wessex, Kernow and all the rest? They’d crown you High King in a heartbeat, and then we should have none of this bother with Northumbria or Elmet, or anywhere else.” Oh, Jesu, I’ve done it this time. Why cannot I learn to keep my mouth shut?
But Penda just looks at me, and lets out a cracked, wheezing laugh. “I may be many things, boy, but at least I’m an honest man. When I go to meet my ancestors I shall go with my head held high. I will feast and hunt for all time, and my body will melt back into the earth and the heat of the sun, and mingle with the waters, riding on the waves of the sea for all time. That is how things used to be, before all this talk of eternal torment.”
So every man has his price, even Penda, King of Mercia. I have him, now. He seeks mastery not only over the kingdoms of Britain, but over God too, and good luck to him. He knows my skills; he’ll use them again. Let the old snake think I am his knife to wield; really he is mine.
Elfgift and Mildreth
IT IS all such lies.
It sickens me, watching the Wolf King and his men glutting themselves with wine and meat, swapping false honey-words with Penda and Wulf. It makes me want to throw something. At least I am not the only one mired
in a fit of the dismals: Mildreth is worse than useless with gloom, and I know now why Wynn was giving her seven shades of hell the day Cenry and I rode out to Elmet. The daft heifer is with child, and will not tell a soul who the father is. All she does is blunder about weeping fit to flood us. She has already dropped a bowl of blood-pudding so that it cracked into splinters, which I had to crawl around after and pick up.
I’m at odds with Edge as well. Only this morning, he caught me as I was crossing the yard with the pruning shears Cam sent me for. “I hope you’re proud of thaself,” he said, looking at me as if I were a maggot. “Sneaking secrets out of the Elmet-set – more or less betraying your own folk, that is.”
“What, because I’ve British blood as well as Anglish?” I sneered at him. “What do I care for that? And right well I was paid for it, too.”
“Wulf paid you for your daft, unbridled tongue,” Edge snapped. “And lucky you were it wasn’t worse. Anyhow, even a fool could see the half of it was he feels guilty for not telling Elfgift you were here. He should have sent word to her.” I was about to stalk off, but then Edge laid a hand on my arm, speaking kinder than before. “Look, Cai – just take care, that’s all.”
I walked away to the orchard with the shears, letting them drag and bounce in the dust, feeling even more miserable than before.
Goodlord the Wolf King is a fool. A great bulk of a man he is, his face wine-reddened as he sits between Wulf and Penda, getting his meaty shoulders in the way when I lean in to pour more beer.
He lumbers to his feet, nearly squashing me against the wall. He’s not the kind to pay much mind to those who serve him. He’s drunk. He grips the edge of the table to keep himself from toppling over like a rotten tree in the woods.