by Katy Moran
“Oh, Holy Christ,” said Essa. Wulf gripped his hands even tighter. “Oh, well enough then. I’ll do it.”
It was not, he thought, as if he had much choice.
Wulf grinned, and slung his arm around Essa’s shoulder. “I knew I could count on you, Essa. And don’t you fret, we’ll think of a way to get rid of the old sow somehow. If she comes back with us, I’ll end up with a blood-price on my head.”
Essa went to bed after Wulf’s wedding-feast swollen with wine, beer and mead, bloated with roasted meat, sausage, ham, and preserved fruits boiled in cream and bread rolled in salt and dried herbs. When Essa had left, Wulf was still dancing with his lady in the hall, her black hair flying, his green cloak swirling about their legs. Essa felt trapped in the hall by the closeness of unfamiliar bodies squashed against his. The stink of fresh sweat and beery clouds of breath drove him outside. He took a thick blanket and the sheepskin from beneath Grani’s saddle, whistled to Fenrir and went outside. She followed him with a last beseeching look at the warm hearth, but followed all the same.
They lay in a cocoon of warmth behind the smithy-shed, Fenrir sleeping, Essa staring up at the glittering lights smeared across the night sky, leaning into the warm bulk of her body. He could not seem to shake off the cold: it was coming from within, from deep in his body, and the whole of his right side was numb with pain. When he moved, he could feel the bandage tugging against the broken skin, and the pain made him close his eyes and grit his teeth.
He listened to the roaring laughter and cheering from inside the hall, guessing Wulf was taking Anwen off to bed behind the curtain of deerskin. He closed his eyes.
His mind slid back to the village, to the hot pressure of Lark’s hand against his on that desperate morning. He remembered how she always rinsed her hair in lavender water, how the smell followed her about, growing richer on warm days or when she shook out her plait. He remembered standing in the hall, alone amongst strangers, when Cai had left him, and Lark saying, I don’t care, I like lice. She had smiled at him.
He did not fall asleep for a long time.
Escape from Caer Elfan
ESSA woke the following morning with a sore head, turning his face into the sheepskin to shield his eyes from the light. His eyelids felt as if they had been boiled in oil. His side ached still. He could not face peeling back the bandage to look. When was he ever going to get a night’s sleep?
But it was as if the pain had heated up his mind like a forge; as the discomfort of waking ebbed, a plan emerged like a new-honed knife, still glowing red from the fire.
We must get out of this place, he thought. It’s like sleeping in a den of vipers. He did not trust Eiludd. What if Wulf became the hostage, and not Anwen after all? Or, at any moment, one of those hard-eyed sons of Eiludd’s might slide a knife between Wulf’s ribs. Or mine. And word would be sent to Penda, asking if he still meant to send his son for Eiludd’s daughter, for the boy had never come.
It would have saved Essa the job of killing him, but waking on this new morning, he saw no reason why Wulf should lose his life for the sake of his father. Wulf was his friend, and none of this mess had been of their making. Essa would not kill him, and he would not allow anyone else to do so. Once they had got clear of Caer Elfan, he would find another way of stopping Wulf going back east with Anwen.
Then Essa thought of Egric, how angry he must be that Essa had disobeyed his order to come straight back to the village, and he smiled to himself in the grey dawn. He would suffer for it when he did return, but it felt good to have shown that arrogant princeling that his word was not the law.
And Cai, too.
He staggered to his feet and his legs felt drained of blood, like shreds of dried meat. Whistling to Fenrir, who shook off sleep like droplets of water after a swim in the mere, he crossed the yard to the hall and let himself in by a side door.
He brushed his hand over the back of Fenrir’s head, running one of her rough, woolly ears through his fingers. Do you wait here, my love. I’ll not be long. And he closed the door carefully behind him, not wanting the grey dawn light to wake anyone within.
The air was thick with stale breath and the stench of spilled honey-wine. Stepping quickly over humped bodies sleeping in the gloom, Essa made his way to the curtained-off part of the hall where Eiludd’s family had their quarters. Where were Wulf and Anwen? He did not want to surprise Eiludd or one of his sons.
Essa stopped when he drew near the deerskin curtain. The air hummed with the sounds of people breathing. But he had spent many nights sleeping by Wulf’s side, and he knew what to listen for. Wulf slept on his back, arms sprawled above his head, as if he were not at all afraid that someone might come in the night and stick a knife in his belly. Sometimes the breath caught in Wulf’s throat when he was most deeply asleep. There he was, off to Essa’s right-hand side. He made his way towards the back of the hall, walking along the length of the curtain. He just hoped that Eiludd and his sons would have drunk enough last night to keep them wound in sleep till the sun was high.
Closer, closer.
Then, there was Wulf, right behind the curtain. Essa could hear Anwen breathing softly too. He pulled the flap of deerskin to one side, letting it fall behind him, and found Wulf and Anwen, twined in blankets and sheepskin. She lay curled up on one side, her back to Wulf, one white arm drawing the blanket close under her chin. Wulf lay on his back, dark hair spread loose. Essa felt a rush of pity for them both, and the gap between their bodies as they lay. If it were him lying there with Lark, he knew they would wind about each other as they had done when they were children, by the fire in the Wixna hall. Kneeling, he gripped Wulf’s arm, and his eyes snapped open. Wulf’s other hand shot under the sheepskin beneath his head, and he sat up, holding his knife.
“Hush,” Essa said softly. “It’s me.”
Wulf laughed quietly. “I’m restless in this place,” he whispered. “I wonder why?”
“I don’t trust Eiludd either,” Essa said. “I think we should leave while we still can.”
Wulf looked at Anwen, still asleep beside him. “I know. Now?”
Essa nodded. “Do you think we can trust her?”
Wulf shrugged. “We don’t have much choice. She’s my wife, and I won’t live long if I have to tell my father I left her here. And, well—” he broke off, and at that moment Anwen rolled over and sat up, clutching the blanket to her chest, black hair tangling over her shoulders, still twined with ivy leaves from her wedding feast.
“What is this?” she said.
“Wulf, do you tell her,” Essa whispered. “I’ll meet you at the stable.” Wulf nodded and, without looking back, Essa slipped through the curtain and made his way outside, heart thumping. All now depended on Anwen. If she were her father’s daughter, she would rouse the whole hall, and he and Wulf would not live to see the sun set.
Expecting at any moment to hear shouting coming from inside, Essa kneeled by Fenrir, running his hand over her bony head, digging his fingers into the silky fur behind her ears. She let out a tiny moaning sound, licking his hand with her broad, rough tongue. Now, my honey, we must go softly, softly. And he ran to the stable with Fenrir at his side, but all remained quiet. By the time he had Grani and Balder saddled and bridled, he could hear footsteps outside in the yard. It might be two of Eiludd’s men, he thought. Wulf might be already dead. At a word from her, they could have held him down and slit his throat.
Essa dropped to one knee and slipped the bone-handled knife from its hiding place in his boot. He could see every little dust mote caught in the early morning light, and the footsteps seemed to grow louder and louder till it felt as though his body shook with each one. He turned around to find Wulf and Anwen dressed and wrapped in travelling cloaks. She wore a linen shift with long white sleeves, and a heavy wool gown fastened at the shoulders with a pair of iron brooches.
Relief washed over Essa, and he smiled.
“You’ll come then,” he said to Anwen.
She looked up at him, and her eyes were dark and shining like blackberries.
“Why would I stay?” she said. “They’d feel worse about losing a horse. And it means we can leave behind my aunt Beton. I hate her.”
Essa nodded warily. Anwen, he saw, was not simply going to be part of the baggage.
“I trust you’ve worked out,” she said, “how we are going to get past the guard?”
Essa and Wulf looked at each other. Essa shrugged. “Well, I—”
Anwen sighed. “I thought not. We’ll have to lie. Wulf, go to the bird-mews and fetch a goshawk. The man there will be asleep. If you are not too clumsy, you should be able to manage it. We’re going hunting.”
Smiling fondly at her, Wulf flitted out of the stable.
“There’s no cause to speak to him as if he were some kind of halfwit,” Essa said, in British. “It’s not Wulf’s fault you’ve married him. He was forced into it just as you were. You may as well make the most of it.”
“Who are you to tell me what to do?” Anwen turned on him, her face blazing with high red colour.
Her hand flew out to hit him and he caught her by the wrist, pushing her away, hissing, “And it is not my fault, either, so do not blame me because you’ve been sold to Mercia.”
Afterwards, he could never recall quite how it had happened, but before he had drawn another breath, she was in his arms, whispering, “You are my kind, you speak my language, you must help me!”
“Hush,” he said. “All I can do is get you out. And Wulf’s my friend, he’s good, he won’t do anything to harm you.”
But all she did was hold him tighter. He looked down at the top of her head and breathed in the scent of her hair – rosemary, lots of girls rinsed their hair in rosemary-water – but it was wrong. He thought of Lark, drying her hair by the fire in the hall after a swim in the mere. He suddenly had a very clear picture of her in his mind, sitting on the hearthstone in her shift, the scent of lavender and the fresh, salty smell of her body rising up as she moved to stretch out her legs, wiggling her brown toes. The way she had looked away when she saw him, and he had done too, thinking, Cold-hearted sow, because it had been easier than admitting what he really felt.
He stepped back, gently pushing Anwen away.
“Jealous of your master’s treasure, are you?” Her voice was shaky, hurt.
Oh no, oh no. “Wulf’s not my master!”
Then Fenrir barked, but Essa could hear it was a greeting rather than a warning, and he looked up to see Wulf coming towards him, crossing the courtyard from Eiludd’s bird-hall, a goshawk on his gloved wrist.
“At last!” Anwen looked up, smiling, as if she and Essa had been talking about nothing more than the weather. “You won’t have thought about food, either, I’m sure. Wait here.”
She fled out of the stables and into the courtyard.
They rode to the gate, saddlebags bulging with twice-baked bread, sausage, blood puddings and dried fruit, all stolen from Eiludd’s stores. The goshawk was hungry for the kill, and so was Fenrir. Essa could feel their hunger for the chase, and for hot blood. He was still feeling faint with the pain of mounting up. It had hurt so much he’d felt tears start to his eyes. He had been cut before only never this deep, never so long and ragged a wound. But he should not feel this sick.
There was nothing he could do about it now.
Two men were at the gate, muffled in cloaks against the dawn chill, watching them come closer.
“Are you sure that hound isn’t going to slow us down?” Anwen said quietly. “Would she not be best off here? She’s a fine dog – it’d be a shame to lame her.”
“No,” hissed Essa. “We’re meant to be hunting. It would look strange not to take a hound. And even so, I’d bring her. She’ll not go lame.”
Wulf nodded his agreement. “She’s fast – and she saved our lives in the greenwood, didn’t you, Fenrir?”
The guards got awkwardly to their feet, stiff, Essa guessed, with sitting outside all night in bone-aching cold.
“A fine morning!” Anwen called out. “I’m showing my lord how well is the hunting out beyond the Black Wood.”
One of the guards caught her bridle. Essa sucked in a breath.
The guard laughed, patting the white mare’s flank. “Glad to see you have plenty of food, my lady,” he said, nodding towards a bulging saddlebag.
Anwen smiled, and Essa saw the guard’s eyes dim slightly, as if her beauty had knocked the senses from him. “Well, I would not want my lord to go back to Mercia thinking we do not know how to give pleasure to our guests.”
“No indeed, my lady,” said the guard, and Essa saw that they were safe for now. Looked mazed, the guard let go Anwen’s bridle and the three of them rode out of the gate.
Leaning forward, Essa whispered, Go well, my dear, into Grani’s ear. Soon we will have a fine gallop.
They picked their way down the mountain path, and he silently prayed that the horses would be surefooted on it, that none of them would slip one of the new shoes King Eiludd’s farrier had fitted outside the smithy the previous morning.
They rode away from Caer Elfan into the dawn-lit mountains, facing back towards the plains of the Magonsaete, and the east. Wulf and Essa rode on either side of Anwen, Grani and Balder flanking her white mare, Fenrir striding along beside Grani, taking long, easy steps. They had just reached a wider, grassier path when Essa felt a sudden chill. He gasped, and his spirit flew free. He felt the stretch as the goshawk perching on Wulf’s wrist spread her wings, and the thrill as she rose into the air. Up she went, higher and higher. And when Essa looked down, he saw through the goshawk’s arrow-sharp red eyes: a beetle moving laboriously through the grass, a grey flash of warm fur as a hare cowered in the heather.
They flew higher, and then he saw the riders bearing down the path from Caer Elfan.
He made the goshawk turn her gaze back to his body, slumped in the saddle on Grani’s back: the rusty flash of his red hair, the pale sweep of his arm. And then Essa was back inside himself. “Stop!” he said. The others reined in their horses.
“What?” said Anwen.
“Down the path—” He could hear them now, too. He could feel the earth shuddering beneath their feet, shaken by horses at gallop – how many? Eight? Ten? Judging by the stricken expression on Anwen’s face so could she.
“My brothers!” she said. “He’s sent my brothers.”
Essa caught Wulf’s eye, remembering those hard-faced young men in the hall, their gripping handshakes.
“Let’s not head for the woods,” Essa said quickly. “That’s what they’ll be thinking we’ll try. Let’s go north instead. We can double back later.”
They urged their horses to a gallop. Looking down, Essa could just see Fenrir, a blurred grey shape, running as though she were a spirit-hound, a dog of the Aesir. He could hear hounds howling behind them, but she did not reply, she just ran and he wondered how she must feel to be prey.
But we’re not prey, he thought. We’re going to get away.
It was a bruising ride: fast and violent, thundering over loose tussocks of earth, scattering mud and dried heather as they went north through the grassy foothills of the mountains. And at last, a long, spirit-draining age after Essa had last heard their pursuers, they slowed down and shared a flask of water, without dismounting. The horses were exhausted, their flanks dripping with sweat, their eyes rolling, ears flattened back against their heads.
Anwen laughed. “They can’t get me now.”
“You weren’t supposed to enjoy it,” said Wulf, passing Essa the water bottle. “How’s that cut?”
Anwen looked chastened for a moment, “You should let me have a look at it when we stop,” she said. “Wulf told me. Why didn’t you say anything when we were at my father’s? I packed the right herbs – I can make a salve.”
Essa shrugged. She seemed to have got over her anger with him, at least – unless this was all just a show for Wulf’s benefit. He felt faint with pain, bu
t it was clear they could not stop for long yet. There were still many more acres to put between them and Anwen’s brothers before he might feel safe.
They rode on, a slow trot this time. But still further and further away from Caer Elfan.
Essa could not keep up. He had fallen a little way behind, so he was watching them, riding along together. Anwen held the reins loosely and had the easy seat of a practised rider. The mare’s sleek sides were the colour of new milk, her legs strong and elegant, her black eyes like smudges of charcoal on her face. Anwen’s fingers trailed in the long white mane, and many times she leant forward in the saddle and whispered into the mare’s ears.
When Essa was very young, no higher than Cai’s waist, his father had taken him to a green hillside in Wessex. In the gathering dusk, they had climbed the grassy slope until they came to a ridge, and saw a great white horse cut into the chalk hillside. Standing there with his father, Essa’s heart had sung, soaring high at the sight of the great running mare, pale chalk glowing in the near-darkness.
“Kneel, little cub,” Cai had said, and Essa followed his father’s movements: they dropped to their knees and fell to the ground, breathing in the scent of warm grass, and Cai had prayed to the horse-goddess. The British would never forget her, despite their god-houses and their adopted Lord.
When Cai had finished his prayer, he looked down at Essa and gave him a rare bright, flashing smile, laying a hand on his head. “There, now she’ll keep us safe. It’s a good thing Elfgift doesn’t know we’ve been here. I don’t think she’d have liked it!”