Paths of Exile

by Carla Nayland

  Another flurry of rain decided her, and she picked up her cloak as soon as it stopped.

  “I’m going out for a walk.”

  It proved very easy to follow the tramp’s footprints in the damp ground. When the track emerged from the woods, the sheep hooves all went one way and his went another, his prints clear and obvious in the peat. In a hollow below a peat hag she found her cooking pot, bowl and spoon, all scraped clean. No sign of the tramp.

  “Ungrateful fellow,” she muttered crossly. “You could have brought them back!”

  But there was no sign of the sick friend either, and more prints – more than one set – led away from the hollow, going roughly north through the bogs. She knew for a fact that there was no habitation for at least a day’s journey in that direction. The tramp and his sick friend were in for another uncomfortable night on the moor.

  “Stupid man,” she said to herself, following the prints. “Stupid, stupid man! Serves him right!”

  She had gone only a few yards when she was seized from behind and her wrists pinioned in a powerful grasp. She lashed out with elbow and knee, and was rewarded with a muffled grunt, but her captor did not seem to be seriously inconvenienced. A foot tripped her neatly so that she stumbled, and her arms were twisted painfully behind her back.

  “Come quiet,” rumbled a deep voice in broken Brittonic, “or I wring your neck like chicken, yes?”

  Severa was half-dragged, half-pushed a few yards further to a couple of large boulders, where to her astonishment – and a certain amount of relief – the blond tramp who had come begging for food emerged. Behind him she could see that a ragged cloak had been rigged across the gap between the boulders and another had been secured across the top to form a crude shelter. A feeble fire sputtered reluctantly in the middle, and to her surprise she saw a third tramp huddled over it, apparently trying to coax the flames into life. He too stood up, and she saw he was limping heavily. Presumably he was the sick friend. The tramp hadn’t seen fit to mention a third man, though, let alone one with the strength of two. She craned her neck to look at her captor, a huge bear-like man with a red beard mingling with his chest hair. All three of them were bare-chested, despite the damp chill, and she felt a cold twist of fear in the pit of her stomach. What were they going to do with her?

  “Let go of me, you oaf!” She stamped on the Red Bear’s foot, but he didn’t seem to notice. “You,” this to the blond one who had begged for food, “you think this is a fair way to repay me? I give you food and you assault me? Tell this great lummox to unhand me, now! I came to help you!”

  They conferred anxiously in a guttural language that she took to be Saxon.

  “We want you not here, lady,” the blond one said, after a while. “But do not want to kill you. You go away.”

  “Kill me –!” Severa repeated, dumbfounded, angry and more than a little frightened. “You half-wits! Can’t you understand anything I say? I came to help you!”

  Exchange of blank looks and shrugs.

  “Listen to me, you idiots! I want to help you!”

  “Why?”

  They all started at the question, and Severa realised that what she had taken for a heap of blankets lying by the fire was in fact another man. Mother of God, how many more of them were there? The voice had sounded weak, as if articulating a single word was a great deal of effort. This must be the sick friend. She tried to go towards him, but the Red Bear held her back.

  “Because if I was cold and sick and hungry I hope some kind stranger would help me!” she retorted, since although sick at least he appeared to understand Brittonic. “Tell this oaf to let go of me. I came to help!”

  He spoke a few words in the barbarous language, and the effect was miraculous. The Red Bear released her and stepped back, though they still looked suspicious.

  She knelt beside the sick man. He was lying on two tunics, with a third folded under his head, and covered by a cloak and some rags. One glance told her that he was seriously ill. He seemed quite young, but he was thin, haggard, his eyes glittering with fever, his face unhealthily flushed, his breathing ragged. He was soaked in sweat and shivering violently. When she felt for the pulse in his wrist it was a racing, thready beat, and the skin was burning hot.

  “Mother of God! You need a doctor.”

  “Too late,” he gasped out. “But please – help – my friends –”

  He lapsed into the foreign language, and she shook her head at him.

  “Brittonic, speak Brittonic! What happened to you?”

  “Spear – in the – guts –”

  “May I see?”

  Severa pulled aside the cloak covering him and saw the lower left side of his tunic was stiff with dried blood. She turned back the cloth, gently, and came close to retching at the sight. A crusted bandage, saturated with pus and dried blood, was welded to an ugly swelling of inflamed, discoloured flesh. The stench of corruption was overwhelming. Severa laid her hand on the swelling to confirm that it was hot, and even though she barely brushed the skin the sick man gasped and flung back his head. He did not scream, which surprised her, but the arched back and the cords standing out in his neck confirmed his agony. Severa shuddered, but even as she fought down her nausea, she had an instinct that something was wrong. She sniffed at the wound again. It made her gag, but, yes, something was missing. She leaned over his face and sniffed again. Then she turned back the cloak over his feet. One shoe was missing and the foot was covered in raw, red blisters under the dirt.

  She sat back on her heels. She was sure now.

  “I believe I can help you,” she said quietly.

  Ashhere watched tensely, hand on sword-hilt. He had never killed a woman and did not want to start now, but if she did Eadwine any harm –! Eadwine had said She’s a friend. Do as she says, but the intervals of lucidity were getting shorter and less frequent, and he was not entirely sure whether Eadwine had really understood. He had lapsed back into the Hel dream again now, though this time he was entreating Frija, Woden’s queen, to intercede for him, much as an unsuccessful supplicant thrown out on his ear by the thane will often creep round to the women’s chamber to try his luck at convincing the thane’s lady.

  The woman obviously understood none of it, and was arguing with Eadwine in a torrent of impatient Brittonic. Probably she was annoyed that he had drifted back into delirium and was no longer comprehending her. Ashhere wished she would not speak so fast. He could understand Brittonic quite well when it was spoken slowly and deliberately, and he was even beginning to get used to the strange local accent, but when she spoke fast all the words seemed to come out at once and he got hopelessly lost. She leaned over Eadwine again, this time speaking very slowly and carefully as one might to a recalcitrant child. It was lost on Eadwine, but Ashhere caught a word he understood. Doctor, wise woman, herbwife, witch – it could mean any or all of them, but it always meant one who knew the craft of healing.

  “What are we waiting for?” asked Drust, who had understood the same thing.

  Ashhere hesitated. “We – we don’t know who’s down there – there might be enemies – ”

  “It wouldna matter if the Twister himself was waiting for us,” Drust retorted brusquely. “If we stay here he’ll be deid for sure.”

  He stooped, folded the cloak over Eadwine, and lifted him bodily into his arms.

  “Lead on, lady.”

  “Be quiet, Blodwen!” Severa snapped, before the tirade could get going. “I want fire, lots of hot water, the ragbag, an old bowl, the honey, and my birthing bag. In here.”

  She led the way into the vegetable and fodder store. The roof did not leak – well, not much – and as it had once been the house it had a hearth. She ducked under the hanging strings of onions and began spreading bracken to make a bed. The limping tramp and the blond one came to help. Severa hoped the sick tramp was unconscious, but as the Red Bear laid him gently down he drew in a sharp gasping breath and mumbled something in the foreign language. Even without being a
ble to understand a word she could recognise his pain.

  It was Gwen who brought the things she asked for, and took an unconscionable time over lighting a fire. It would be, of course. Gwen would ogle anything in trousers, and there was no denying the Red Bear was a magnificent specimen. She hovered in the doorway like a dog eyeing a bone.

  “Out!” Severa barked, and she fled.

  The sick tramp was painfully thin and covered in ripening bruises and partly-healed lacerations. His right shoulder was horribly bruised and swollen from the internal bleeding from a broken bone, but as far as she could tell the bone was beginning to mend, was more or less straight, and required no immediate attention from her.

  The abdominal wound was a different matter. She soaked the revolting bandage repeatedly in boiled water until she could peel it away. The flesh beneath was livid, coloured a disgusting greenish-purple. Pus dribbled from the open lips of a deep gash. It stank. Severa stared at the wound, half-wishing she had never started this. Yet she was certain, certain that she was right. And there was the grim comfort that the most incompetent doctor in the world could hardly make this any worse.

  She put her hand to the cross hanging at her neck and said a silent prayer to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, then added others to the Blessed Lady Mary, to Arawn Lord of the Dead, to the Great Mother and to the local water-goddess for good measure. Surely one of them might be listening. She reached into the pouch at her waist for the roll holding her grandfather’s medical instruments, selected the large scalpel and held the blade briefly to the flames.

  The three tramps gazed at her wide-eyed and fearful, but with a terrible hope.

  “Hold him down,” she said, and set to work.

  “Lord King! Lord King! We found him!”

  In the captured hall at Wicstun, the tumult of talk and laughter on the mead-benches died away. Aethelferth stopped with a hunk of meat halfway to his mouth. One atheling was in prison back in Eboracum, another was believed to have escaped by sea, and the boy was under Ceretic’s protection in Elmet, but they did not matter. Aethelferth had not pledged them to Woden.

  The mud-stained, blood-spattered guard captain paused for effect, revelling in his moment of glory.

  “Eadwine of Deira!”

  An expectant hush fell as the prisoner was shoved forward into the firelight in the midst of the hall. He stood proudly, despite having his hands tied behind his back, and held his head high. All the Bernician warriors recognised him instantly – the tall thin figure, the mail shirt made for a broader and shorter man, the elaborate gilded helmet, the jewelled sword. The captain cut the helmet’s chin strap and lifted it off, revealing a head of tousled dark hair and a handsome, chiselled face wearing an expression of intense and implacable hatred.

  “Caught him on the Great South Road,” announced the captain. “Running for his worthless life like a thief!”

  Aethelferth was satisfied. The ex-mistress had disappeared on the night after the battle so he had not brought her with him on this punitive raid beyond the Derwent, but this haughty prisoner was clearly the prince he had pledged to Woden.

  “You are Eadwine son of Aelle?” he demanded, though he had no doubt of the answer.

  Treowin held his head higher. How dare these scum feast in his father’s hall? One day there would be a reckoning! One day Eadwine would return to Deira at the head of an army and sweep them into the sea with fire and sword! And by dying in his place Treowin would make that day come, even though he would not himself live to see it. It was a death that would earn him everlasting fame. He glared into Aethelferth’s eyes.

  “I am Eadwine son of Aelle son of Yffi, by right of blood the King of Deira, and I will be your downfall!”

  Aethelferth was unimpressed. He belched and took a long swig of mead.

  “How did Aelle Ox-brains produce this strutting cockerel?”

  He leaned forward across the table, ignoring the raucous laughter, and fixed the prisoner with a stare of cold triumph.

  “I have pledged you to the Masked One, cockerel.” He beckoned the guard captain forward. “Take him to the Home of the Gods.”

  The shock almost felled Treowin. He had expected to be executed, possibly there and then in the feasting hall. He had not, in his wildest nightmares, envisaged a ritual slaughter. The Home of the Gods was the oldest and most prestigious temple in Deira, founded by Treowin’s own ancestors as their first act after being granted their lands by the Emperor and maintained by them ever since. Treowin had trodden the familiar path from his father’s hall to the sacred oak grove many times, for festival and funeral, wedding and birth, to thank or propitiate or petition the gods. But never as a condemned man, never in the certain knowledge that he would never return.

  The three temple women were already waiting at the entrance to the grove, and the door to the House of the Dead stood open. Treowin came close to falling down in terror when his guards released him. No living man entered the House of the Dead. It was where a body was brought after death, and there handed over to the temple women to be prepared for burial or burning.

  The women closed around him, ghostlike in their white robes and veils, took him by his shaking hands and led him through the portal. There, they removed their veils. A young girl, a grown woman, and a crone. No living man was permitted to see their faces, but Treowin had been dedicated to the gods and therefore for all intents and purposes he was already dead. Like a corpse, they stripped him of armour and clothing. Like a corpse, they washed him from head to foot, trimmed his beard and combed his hair. Like a corpse, they laid him down on a soft couch by the fire, and chanted slow, sad songs over him. They laid wheat bread, cooked meats, smoked ham, fruit and mead by his head, as would be done on a funeral pyre, except that Treowin was clearly expected to eat and drink, and did. In one other departure from the usual ritual – at least, Treowin hoped it was a departure – the girl removed her own clothing and lay beside him on the couch, fondling him. But the other two remained looking on, and in any case Treowin was too unnerved by the whole eerie business. He signalled for more mead instead, and drank himself into insensibility.

  He was still half-dazed with drink and terror when morning came. The women replaced their veils and tied a blindfold over his eyes. He heard the door creak open. Two of the women took him by the hands and led him outside and up the winding path to the sanctuary. He felt the warmth of the sun on his skin. Leaves and twigs rustled under his bare feet. High above, the breeze sighed in the branches.

  Treowin felt the sun grow stronger as they emerged into an open space. This must be the central clearing. A rhythmic drumming started up and was joined by other drums in a throbbing, pulsing beat. A man’s voice – presumably that of the priest, although Treowin did not recognise it – was raised in a sonorous praise-chant, extolling Woden’s power and asking him to accept this gift. When the responses were made, the volume of sound took Treowin’s breath away. The crowd must be enormous. Aethelferth must have turned out most of the district to witness his triumph. This was a great gift to the gods indeed, the gift of royal blood. Probably the sanctuary had seen nothing like it in all its long history.

  There was grass under his feet now instead of the earth and leaves of the path. The women stopped and turned him to face the crowd, still keeping hold of his hands. Oddly, Treowin’s overwhelming feeling was a sense of shame at standing naked except for a blindfold in front of so many people.

  The priest’s chant ended in a high ululating yell. The drumming reached a crescendo and then ceased. Utter silence fell. Treowin steeled himself for the slash of a knife across his throat, as was done for the sacrifice of animals. But instead he felt a noose of coarse rope looped around his neck, and a cold steel point pressed against the right side of his belly, under the ribcage.

  The women released his hands. The blindfold was whipped from his face. Dazzled by the light, he glimpsed an unfamiliar priest using all his weight to keep a sapling bent in a taut curve, the other end of the
noose tied to the top of the sapling, and Aethelferth drawing back his spear to deliver the killing blow, and he understood. Aethelferth would drive home the spear, at the same moment the priest would release the sapling, and Treowin would be jerked high into the canopy to die, strangled and pierced, among the oak leaves.

  Then the numinous tension was shattered by a woman’s shriek.

  “Treowin! It’s Treowin! Oh, my brother, my brother! Treowin!”

  Aethelferth’s eyes blazed. He drew back the spear – but instead of a killing blow, he struck through the rope. The strands frayed and parted. The sapling sprang back harmlessly into the air.

  He seized Treowin by the throat and shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. His voice was a hiss of pure rage.

  “If you are not Eadwine, where is he?”

  Chapter 8

  It was long after dawn when Ashhere woke, feeling utterly drained and somehow rather beaten up, as if he had lost a wrestling match. Something was digging uncomfortably into his neck. Closer inspection revealed it to be the hilt of Drust’s sword. He sat up, squinting in the strong sunlight pouring in through the open door, wondering why he could possibly have gone to sleep in Drust’s lap in an onion shed, and then his memory tardily provided him with the answer. He shivered. He was frightened of witchcraft, and frightened of the green-eyed, black-haired witch, who looked at him as if she thought someone had already turned him into a toad. She had said, as far as he could understand, that she had to open Eadwine’s wound to remove the evil that was killing him, and Ashhere had believed her. But he had not expected it to be so harrowing an experience. Had she gone? He crept tentatively to Eadwine’s side. No sign of the witch, but in the exact place where he had last seen her, kneeling beside Eadwine’s shoulder, a cat sat upright with its tail curled neatly around its toes. A very trim, very supercilious, very elegant pure black cat. With green eyes.