Bloodline

by Katy Moran

  “What of it? Happens all the time.”

  “As soon as Wulf takes her back to Mercia, Penda’s army moves east, to take the throne of the Wolf Folk. Most of his men are already garrisoned along the East Anglian border, in the marshes.”

  “I’d heard Egric the Atheling’s been trying to coax that cousin of his out of Bedricsworth monastery. So Penda thinks he’s secured the west, by taking the girl?” Mereleor laughed quietly. “Maybe now’s the time for the Magonsaete to stir up a touch of bother out here, while he isn’t looking. Well, I thank you, boy – whoever you are. Now go, and may God save your skin, because if Penda finds you out, no blood-price on earth will buy your life.”

  Mereleor reached out and they clasped hands. “If you’ll hear my counsel,” he said in a low voice, “stay away from the affairs of kings. It’s a bloody game, and you’re just a lad. Whoever put you up to this must be a fool. Who’s your lord, then, if not Penda’s brat? You don’t wear a ring like an honest man.”

  “I’m not an honest man,” said Essa. “And the rest I can’t tell you.”

  Mereleor shook his head, grasping Essa’s hand tightly. “You’re either brave or brainless, boy. May luck stay by your side.”

  Essa nodded and forced himself to smile, as if pretending not to care meant he actually didn’t. He rode on after Wulf, guiding Grani up the tussocky hillside, whistling for Fenrir, who came loping out of the mist like a wolf. He turned once and looked back after their Magonsaete escort, dark figures on horseback, melting back into the fog. A moment later, it was as if they had never been.

  “Doubtless they’ve sent us off the wrong way,” said Wulf when Essa caught up with him. “The Magonsaete hate my father more than anything.”

  “If it wasn’t you, they’d be paying tribute to someone else,” said Essa, sure that Wulf must be able to sense his betrayal, to smell it oozing from his skin like sour sweat. He and Wulf were bound now, whether he liked it or not: they had fought back to back and defeated an enemy together. Betraying Wulf was betraying a friend.

  But he had to stop Penda.

  He pictured Cole running to the top of the village wall, his broad fingers stroking his sword hilt, fiddling with his belt. He would be exchanging jokes with the men next to him, laughing a bit, but they were waiting for the Mercians, for death to come striding across the marshes. He thought of Hild, her hand resting on Meadowsweet’s old, grey-muzzled head as she listened for the sound of hoofbeats coming from the west.

  And Lark: Lark running light and quick to the top of the wall with the women and girls, ready to string her bow and send arrows streaming down. But a bow would be no use once the Mercians breached the village wall – which they would, eventually. They would come streaming over the top, cutting down every man, woman and child in their path. He could not bear thinking of Lark, sure that if he did, he would turn his horse about and ride back east till he reached her.

  Essa sucked in a deep breath, closing his eyes as the dull throbbing of pain in his knife wound grew deeper.

  If Penda were not to ride east until Eiludd’s daughter was safe in his hands, Essa would just have to make sure that Wulf did not return. Filled with misery, he looked across and watched Wulf leaning back in the saddle, yawning and twisting the reins around his long, clever fingers as he squinted into the twilight.

  It would not be easy to kill him.

  Then, just as the last of the light was fading, the wind picked up, playing with Grani’s grey mane and lifting Essa’s own hair from his shoulders, stirring it like waking flames around his head.

  The cloud boiled away to one side, and they saw Caer Elfan at last: a bright-windowed hall high in the hills, sitting in the lap of a white-crested mountain. The westering sun threw a rich crimson wash of light on to the white peak, and Essa’s heart swelled at the sight of it, and the high-gabled hall below. He was filled with a sense that anything was possible: he was in command. He would think of something.

  They reined in the horses, drinking in the sight after long days in the wildwood, and on the lonely plains of the Magonsaete, away from the warm brightness of human company. “She’s in there,” said Wulf. “My wife.”

  “Well, do you come on, then. Let’s go and fetch her.”

  Caer Elfan, Powys

  JUST before the gates, Essa and Wulf stopped to untie the leather peace bands they’d worn looped about their wrists since leaving Penda’s fortress, and wound them tight around the hilts, pommels and scabbards of their swords.

  “I hate this custom,” Wulf muttered. “It gives me the chills going into a place knowing I can’t draw my sword.”

  “Hide a knife, then,” Essa said, tying his last knot firmly. “I’ll wager every one of Eiludd’s men does it, peace bands or not.”

  Wulf grinned. “Oh, I already have,” he said. “Two.”

  “Such craven dishonour,” said Essa, and unbuckling the bone-handled knife and its wooden sheath from his belt, he slid them down the inside of his boot.

  “Such a strong desire not to get my throat cut,” Wulf said.

  And, laughing, they rode on.

  After the plains of the Magonsaete and the sharp, clear mountain air, Caer Elfan was overwhelming. The silvery rush of Essa’s own tongue, spoken all around him by a crowd of curious, questioning people was like the crashing swell of the sea, pounding over him in great waves. The accent was thick and hard to understand: it was like trying to listen to someone speaking underwater. Women and girls walked around with spindles leaning against their shoulders, and his head whirled with the thrum of spinning wool. Men’s voices rose in song and laughter. Children shrieked and ran about under the long table.

  They were borne through the crowd, and he kneeled before Eiludd himself, Eiludd Powys: a tall, snake-thin man with long, strong fingers and swirling blue clan-tattoos on his cheeks. “Why are you for speaking our language, boy?” he said raising Essa to his feet. “Who’s your people?”

  “Cai of the Iceni is my father, my lord. He’s a scop.”

  Eiludd laughed. “He’s that and more. I’m knowing him. There isn’t a king in the land who does not. He’s a clever man, your father, but I hope he does take care.”

  And Essa felt a little burst of fear for his father, then, and wished he had seen Cai ride away from Penda’s fortress on Melyor, bound for the safety of the Wolf Marches.

  Then there was Eiludd’s sister, a spare-boned woman with a glazed look in her eyes that Essa had seen before, when he was in Kent with his father, selling green glass bottles to the bishop of Augustine’s church. A crowd had been throwing stones at an old woman laying gifts at the feet of an ash tree. Eiludd’s sister had the same mask-like expression as those folk, as if God had stolen their faces, their thoughts. Her hand when he held it in his felt like a claw, bony and cold.

  Then Eiludd’s men came forward, some of them his sons. They were outwardly cheerful, their faces traced over with blue clan-tattoos, clasping hands with hard, gripping fingers.

  And Essa thought, We cannot trust them. He had not thought of it before, but he saw now that Eiludd most likely had the same plans for Wulf that Penda had for Eiludd’s daughter. What if Eiludd means to take Wulf hostage? Or even kill him?

  Eiludd’s sons made much of Fenrir, calling her a fine beast, slapping her flanks and dropping shreds of meat to the floor for her. She whined, looking up at Essa, and he felt a flash of guilt. She was tired and hungry; she had covered a vast distance without complaint, but now, it seemed, she’d had enough. He ran his hand down her back, grubbing his fingers into the thick fur around her neck, whispering, Go on, my honey. Go by the fire and sleep.

  Then, when he looked up, there was Eiludd’s daughter, standing between her father and aunt.

  She wore a red gown, the crisp pale sleeves of her underdress grazing the backs of her hands. Her skin was milk-white, black hair hung past her waist in long, loose curls. Her eyes darted towards Essa, and she lowered them quickly to the floor.

  Beside him, W
ulf seemed to slacken suddenly, as if the air had been sucked from his body.

  “Sweet Lady Frigya,” he muttered. “Oh, may you preserve me.”

  The girl looked up and stared at Wulf, her face expressionless for a moment. Then she smiled, and Essa saw that she was not looking at Wulf, but at him.

  Oh no, he thought. Not me. He felt a great heat wash through his body, and wanted more than anything to be holding Lark in his arms, to feel her head against his shoulder, and her arms around his waist, pulling him closer. He had to fight a strong urge to turn around, take Grani from the care of Eiludd’s horse-boy, and ride till he was in Wixna-land again. But then he recalled the heads of Dai and his sister rotting on spikes by the gate to Penda’s camp, and thought of how angry their spirits must be, lonely and wandering the Land of Mist till their shameful deaths were avenged. And he thought of Penda, and his cold arrogance, and of all the Wixna at home in their marsh fortress, nothing more than ticks to be squashed beneath Penda’s foot on his way east to the heartland of the Wolf Folk.

  He is a murderer, and a robber-king, Essa thought, and I will stop him.

  He looked back at Eiludd’s daughter and, though the light in her eyes made him yearn again for Lark, he just smiled, and bowed his head.

  Eiludd said, “Wulfhere of the Mercians, I give to you my daughter Anwen.”

  Wulf did not answer; Anwen had silenced him. He kneeled before her, speechless. And until the moment Wulf moved, her dark eyes were fixed on Essa.

  He had to get away. He smiled his way through the crowd until it felt as if his cheeks would crack. He finally reached a side door that let him out into a courtyard. The great white mountain shone in the moonlight, watching over the hall like a fond grandmother, and people were milling about, laughing and calling greetings to one another. Nobody took any notice of him. In the dark, with the colour drained from his red hair, he could have been anyone. It was not like the village here: people would always be passing through Caer Elfan to pay homage to Eiludd, to beg his favour and to sell him secrets. People just like Cai.

  Just like me, he thought.

  There was no ash tree in the courtyard – Powys had been Christian for generations. He could see a light burning in the smithy-shed opposite, and heard the sound of grating metal. Someone was still at work, then. The wooden wall at his back vibrated as a loud cheer went up in the hall, and he imagined Anwen raising Wulf to his feet, Wulf drinking in the sight of her, kissing her hand. Essa felt so alone; even Fenrir was asleep by the fire without him.

  He leaned against the thick wall, breathing deeply. The cut down his side throbbed: a dull, nagging pain. His head ached, it felt as if a hot iron band was tightening around his skull, and the sticky, cloying taste of mead clung to the back of his throat.

  He let out a long breath. He had to stop Wulf returning to Penda with Anwen. He would have to kill them both, Wulf first. He tried to imagine the shock of impact thrumming up his sword-arm as he plunged the blade into flesh.

  That’s if Eiludd doesn’t do the job for me. And my life means less to him than one of his dogs’. He’ll have my throat cut without thinking twice.

  Essa would grieve the rest of his life for it, he knew, and Wulf’s green eyes and wild laugh would haunt his dreams till the day he died. Only what choice was there? He closed his eyes and fixed his mind on the rattling of loom-weights echoing from the torchlit weaving-shed, clay weights clinking together at the end of the warp threads. What would Hild be doing now? Hild, and Lark, and the other girls in the village, chattering as they worked at the great standing looms leaning against the walls of the weaving-hall at home.

  Lark. He wished he could kiss her in the orchard amongst the pear trees, beneath the grapevines. How could they have lived side by side for so many years, without doing so, without even speaking? It was what Hild, and Lark’s mother, had wanted to prevent by breaking apart their friendship, he saw now. He did not understand why, though. Red had put a child into fair, smiling Freo. Cole spent his evenings by the fire with Helith. So why did they want to keep me away from Lark? Surely not because he was half British, not truly Anglish – a cuckoo in Wixna-land?

  He wished Wulf might meet Lark, and that they could all sit around the fire together. But that would never happen, because Wulf was Penda’s son. Then Essa pictured his home again; the weaving-hall empty, the looms smashed, their frames broken and bitten by axes, half-finished fabric torn on the floor, flames coming closer, licking, burning.

  “Stop it, stop letting it take over your mind,” he told himself. He knew that such thoughts would allow fear to enter his body, and freeze his limbs at the moment he needed to act. If he tried to kill Wulf and failed, how could Wulf spare him? One or the other of them would have to die.

  He opened his eyes. The courtyard was empty now. In the hall, someone had started singing of Bran, Lord of the Ravens, and his seven ships. Everyone had gone in to listen. He wondered if Wulf found it tiresome, unable to understand. He smiled in the darkness: Wulf probably had not stopped staring at Anwen.

  The light in the smithy had gone out, the forge-fires banked down with turf. But another light had been lit, further away, on the far side of the courtyard.

  The interior of the god-house was cool; iron sconces cupping flames threw out flickering circles of light, casting the shadows surrounding them into deeper darkness. The air was thick and sweet with burning incense, brought all the way from Constantinople in a trading ship. He expected the priest to be inside, but he was alone.

  A stone font guarded the door, lidded with thick, oiled oak. Essa ran his fingers over the rough stone: it looked as if it had been hewn from the mountain outside, its sides carved with images of a martyr on her knees.

  “Saint Eluned,” said Essa quietly, tracing the long, twisting shape of the saint’s body with his forefinger. The stone felt rough and cold against his skin. Cai had told him this story long ago: how fair Eluned had been killed for loving God more than an earthly prince. Looking down at his hand made him think of the Mercian in the wildwood. Was he dead?

  Then Essa did something he had not done in years. Leaving the font, he walked up to the altar. Dropping to his knees, he kneeled on the floorboards, pressing his forehead against the dusty wood.

  Oh, Lord, oh, Jesu, forgive me what I’m about to do. I must take two lives, but I’ll be saving many.

  He thought of Lark, gripping his hand, looking up at him with hard bright eyes. He had to do it.

  He woke, his left-hand side stiff and cold from lying on the bare floorboards of the god-house. He had fallen asleep. He rolled on to his back, wincing. The knife-wound was not healing well: the skin not knitting together properly. It shouldn’t hurt like this. He sat up, groaning, and peered down the front of his tunic. The bandage was blood-soaked, but luckily it had not seeped through and ruined Wulf’s spare clothes.

  “Essa! What are you doing?” Wulf came running in, long-legged and stoop-shouldered, loping like a hunting dog, like Fenrir. “The god-man found you here this morning – he nearly had a fit. He thought you were dead. Why did you creep off so early last night?”

  Essa struggled to his feet, cursing under his breath. “I’m tired, that’s all – I had to sleep.” He tried to say something about Anwen, and how lucky Wulf was, but the words stuck in his throat. Had he just imagined the longing way she had looked at him? “What’s fuss about, anyhow? You’re not getting married until the afternoon. It’s barely dawn.”

  Wulf gazed up at the ceiling. Essa barked out a laugh. “They’re going to christen you, aren’t they?”

  “May Lady Frigya forgive me – yes, they are. And if only that were the worst of it.” Wulf handed Essa a piece of bread wrapped around cold beef left over from the feast he’d missed the previous night, and he crammed it into his mouth.

  “Anyhow,” said Wulf. “There was I, thinking my father’s actually done me a favour for once in his miserable life, marrying me off to Anwen.” He lingered over her name, as if it left honey
on his lips.

  Essa said, “Well, it’s as well she doesn’t look like a horse’s arse.”

  “Don’t call her a horse’s arse! She’s going to be my wife!”

  Essa sighed. “But that’s what you said—”

  “She’s the fairest girl I’ve ever seen in my life, and you’ll talk about her with respect.”

  Essa fought the urge to roll his eyes. “Oh, do you stop. You sound like a fussy old man. What’ve you to moan of? It’s all working your way, isn’t it? The wyrd’s in your favour.” The words felt like stones in his mouth. The wyrd was not moving Wulf’s way at all, because Essa was going to kill him.

  He looked up, half expecting Wulf to have overheard his thoughts, but he was smiling, as usual. “The aunt,” said Wulf. “Remember her? Looks like she’s been chewing hornets – sort of dried out and corpse-ish?”

  Essa nodded, swallowing the last of his bread and meat. It filled him with strength: his head was suddenly clear and his belly full. Wulf handed him the wooden cup and the cool, watery cider slipped down his throat.

  Maybe I can talk to him, he thought, persuade him not to go back. Wulf’s not like Penda.

  Maybe everything would be all right.

  “Well, do you hear this – she’s coming along with us!” Wulf said, his eyes wide with horror. “Back to Mercia! To make sure Anwen doesn’t sink into our heathen ways.”

  Essa let out a snort of laughter, but his guts were churning. He really did not want to deal with the aunt too. He remembered her cold, mask-like eyes and shuddered. “Maybe she wants to convert your father,” he said, trying to sound light-hearted.

  Wulf shook his head, moaning quietly. “Good luck to her. The last person who tried that ended up with his head on a spike. See, this is the thing, Essa. They’re christening me this morning, and, well, you’re Christian aren’t you?”

  “Well—”

  “You’re in a god-house, aren’t you? Communing with the Holy Ghost or whatever it is you folk do. Although how you keep your god trapped in all these different houses I’ll never know.” Wulf grabbed Essa’s hands, gripping them tight, gazing at him with wild green eyes, the brown freckles on his nose standing out stark against his pale skin. “Look, you’ve got to be my godfather. Promise to teach me the ways of the Lord. Not that I care for them, but I’d rather it was you than that old hag. She’s threatening to pray for my soul! Well, she’s free to, so long as I don’t have to listen to her talk on about it. She wants to be my godmother but I said I’d already promised you the honour of teaching me.”