Paths of Exile

by Carla Nayland

  “I know who Judas was,” he answered dryly. “I am not a follower of the White Christ myself, but I have heard the tale.”

  “Then I am even more sorry.” She bit her lip. “How ungrateful you must have thought me –”

  He smiled. “To be honest, I was not paying you much attention. If anything, it was probably useful. You distracted him, and you convinced him I was no friend of yours. If it worked you would find out your mistake soon enough, and if it didn’t your good opinion was likely to be the least of my worries.”

  “I – I still do not understand why. You could have joined them and taken what you pleased, or you could have disappeared safely into the woods. Why fight them?”

  “I keep telling you we are not thieves. We have eaten your food and slept under your roof. We pay our debts, Mistress. For our own honour, not for your gratitude.”

  She looked up, and her green eyes were full of tears. “Will you – will you accept the gratitude, nonetheless?”

  Chapter 9

  “I d-d-don’t want to go on my own!” Luned wailed, again. “I’m s-s-scared! W-what if more bad men come? What shall I d-d-do?”

  “Scream and run, same as you would if there were two of you,” Severa said, keeping the sharpness out of her tone with an effort. “Luned, you have to take the pigs on your own. There’s no-one to come with you. Gwen’s taking the sheep, and poor Blodwen isn’t fit for anything.”

  Blodwen had cried all night, and between that and jumping in terror at every noise none of them had got any sleep.

  “C-c-can’t you come with m-m-me?” Luned pleaded.

  “No, lass, I’m needed in the dairy. There’s all yesterday’s milk and the day before’s as well as today’s.”

  She closed her eyes, trying not to think of the amount of work she would have to get through. A narrow escape from death, rape or slavery didn’t mean you could all take the day off. And there was grain to grind and bread to make, or the herders would go hungry tomorrow, and –

  “Luned,” she said firmly, “there aren’t enough of us to go round. You’ve got to go on your own.”

  Luned’s startled expression made her turn, to see the youngest tramp, the good-looking boy, threading his way through the milling animals. His limp was almost gone.

  He came up to them, took a deep breath, and declaimed, “My-name-is-Lil-la-I-was-a-swine-herd-once-I-will-help-you-with-the-pigs.”

  Severa blinked. He was regarding her hopefully. “Oh,” she said, surprised. “That’s very kind of you. Have you herded this kind of pig before?”

  His expression became panic-stricken, and he looked round desperately for Steeleye, who was nowhere to be seen. Presumably he was still sleeping, after yesterday. Finding no help, Lilla began repeating his speech, rather louder than before, “My-name-is-”

  Evidently he had got Steeleye to translate what he wanted to say into Brittonic and had learned the strange sounds by heart. It was rather touching.

  “Luned?” she asked.

  Luned gulped, and nodded. Lilla beamed. Luned gave him a shy smile and they trotted off together with the pigs.

  Severa wondered how they would manage, since Lilla obviously did not know a word of Brittonic and Luned did not know a word of Saxon. She shrugged. The pigs didn’t know a word of either. One problem solved, but it looked as if she still had another to deal with before she could start her own day’s work. Gwen was beckoning at her excitedly from the gate, where the sheepdog was chivvying the sheep up the track in a woolly river.

  “I don’t want to go on my own, either!” Gwen announced, with her eyes fixed on Ashhere and Drust who were hauling the thorn bushes further out of the way. “I’m ever so frightened!” She fluttered her eyelashes hopefully in Drust’s direction, but he was intent on the wreckage of the gate and the effect was lost.

  Ashhere stepped forward. “I will come,” he offered, and Gwen cast a last look at Drust and gracefully accepted consolation prize.

  Severa watched them stroll after the sheep, Gwen’s hand already beginning to wander. Just as well the sheepdog knew the job. She rubbed a hand over her tired eyes, wished vainly that she could lie down and sleep for at least a week, and turned to the dairy, running through tasks in her mind. The day-old milk would have separated by now and she would need to skim the cream, churn it into butter, and turn the skimmed milk into cheese. The same for the two-day-old milk, which would still be usable provided she processed it today. Lucky that it had all been on the other table at the far end of the dairy and had escaped her struggle with the thief. She smiled sourly. Lucky? If it had all been spilt at least she wouldn’t have had to deal with it. There was also a bag of curds that had been draining since the day before last, which should have been milled and pressed yesterday and would now have to be done today. And all of today’s milk, which she would have to turn into whole-milk cheese because there was no space to let it separate. Mother of God, she thought, we’d be hard pushed to do all that with two or three of us. So clot today’s milk first and put the curds to drain, then mill the already-drained curds and mould them, and then skim two lots of cream, make the butter, and clot the skimmed milk if she could get round to it. She could give the skimmed milk to the pigs if she had to, but it would be a criminal waste to give them the cream and lose all that butter –

  She passed the door to the grain store, and froze in shock. Surely she must have imagined it. Her nerves were on the jump at every sound – no, there it was again. The grating sound of the rotary quern. Something was grinding grain. Not a person, she was sure. It was a task they all hated, dusty, monotonous and repetitive. In better-off households it was done by slaves, here they reluctantly took turns at it. It had been Gwen’s turn this time, but Gwen had gone up to the moors with the sheep. Blodwen was still snuffling in the house. Had Luned been leaving bowls of cream out for the brownies again? More alarmingly, had one of them taken notice? Severa hesitated. It was very, very bad luck to disturb a brownie at work. They could turn the cows dry, or the cheese rotten, or bring you out in a plague of boils. Then she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. This was her household, whatever-it-was was grinding her grain, and good Christians feared nothing on God’s earth, including brownies. She crossed herself, took the wooden cross firmly in her hand, and kicked open the door.

  It wasn’t a brownie. It was Steeleye. He jumped. She jumped.

  “Oh! What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Milking a cow, what does it look like?” he snapped back. “Why are you waving that cross at me?”

  Severa let it drop. Her hands were shaking annoyingly. “Why are you grinding grain?”

  “Because it hurts too much to chop wood and all I know about sheep is that they’re woolly things with four legs. Gwen – it is Gwen, isn’t it, the pretty one? – was worried that she wouldn’t have the time to do this, being away with the sheep all day. I asked her to show me, it didn’t seem difficult, it only needs one hand, so I volunteered. Am I doing it wrong?”

  He had a lot to learn about Gwen, Severa thought, hiding a smile.

  “No, no. But you shouldn’t – it’s a slave’s task!”

  “So? Somebody has to do it.”

  “It’s not fitting. You’re a great lord in your own country.”

  He started in shock, then his face set into a mulish expression.

  “We are poor men –”

  “Oh yes, and I’m the Empress of Rome! I don’t like being lied to, Steeleye. You carry weapons.”

  “All free men carry weapons where we come from.”

  “That belt was expensive.”

  Eadwine looked down at the broad leather belt with its decorative bronze plates and its heavy bronze buckle. He was so used to it that he had forgotten about it.

  “Stolen,” he said defensively.

  “Really? When you were so keen to insist that you weren’t thieves?”

  “Not from you,” he retorted.

  “Your tunic is a complicated weave. Some ve
ry skilled woman spent a lot of time weaving that, and making the decorative braid, and sewing it all together. Only noblewomen have that much time for needlework.”

  “A hand-me-down from a lord.”

  “Funny he was just the same size as you. And your friends treat you as their leader.”

  “So I happen to be the captain –”

  “At your age? At least two of them are older than you.”

  “Talent. Luck.”

  “More likely noble blood. And you know about fighting, but you’re woefully ignorant about anything practical.”

  “Oh, thank you kindly. So I happen to be stupid.”

  “Hardly stupid, but you’ve obviously never had to earn a living. You speak well.”

  “I talk too much. But that doesn’t mean –”

  “And,” she interrupted, playing her trump card, “there’s this!” She held out the splinter of metal she had removed from his wound.

  “Ah,” he said.

  It was a fragment of mail.

  Severa pressed home her advantage. “Only lords own mail shirts. The Lord of Navio has one. He wears it on high days and holy days.”

  He rallied. “Stolen. From a corpse on the road.”

  “There were two bits of cloth caught on it. One was a scrap of your smart tunic. The other was a piece of linen undershirt. Linen! Ordinary people wear wool. Maybe you stole some lord’s armour. Maybe you even stole his tunic and it just happened to fit you. But do you seriously expect me to believe you stole someone’s luxury underwear?”

  That made him laugh, ruefully.

  “Ashhere warned me you were a witch. I should have listened to him.”

  “You don’t deny you’re of noble blood?”

  Eadwine shrugged, and winced. “I shall have to stop doing that, it hurts…. How can I deny it?” He paused, rubbing his painful shoulder as an excuse to give himself time to think. Damn, damn! He had been much too careless, and this girl was much too sharp. How to repair the damage? He was reluctant to tell her a direct lie – it was too much trouble to maintain a deception – but equally the truth was out of the question.

  He said, cautiously, “I am from a noble family, yes. My fathers served with Peredur King of Caer Ebrawg.” Well, that was quite true, as far as it went. “Men who have wealth have enemies. There is always someone who thinks he has a better claim to a larger share, and is prepared to back it up with violence. There was a fight. I lost.”

  He paused, wondering if that would be enough. It was not exactly untrue, but to someone familiar with the Brittonic system of dividing an inheritance between sons and the inevitable fratricide it produced, it should lead her to an entirely plausible, if wrong, conclusion.

  It did. “So a brother or cousin or uncle attacked you to get your share of the family inheritance? And would have you dead so you cannot reclaim it?”

  He breathed a sigh of relief. “You understand, Mistress? I was not lying when I said ‘poor’. Penniless might be more accurate. My family lands and wealth are gone, probably for ever. All I have left is my life, which I would quite like to keep, at least as long as my friends need me.”

  “Hence you do not want your name known. I can understand that! Telling Blodwen a secret is like carrying water in a sieve. Very well. Your secret is safe with me.” She gave him a warm and friendly smile. “Hadn’t you better get on with earning an honest living? You’ll have to get used to it now, you know.”

  Later in the day he came to help her in the dairy, where she was not even halfway through the work. It quickly became apparent that he was in too much pain to lift or carry anything significant, and Severa was at a loss as to how to make use of him until she had the bright idea of showing him how to skim cream. He was slow at it, of course, even compared to Luned, but anything done was better than nothing, and she was never going to get round to skimming the milk herself.

  “You’re not bad at that, Steeleye,” she said, looking up after a couple of hours to find that he had almost finished. “We’ll make a dairymaid of you yet. Are you left-handed?”

  He seemed very gratified at the praise. “No. It’s because the shield is carried on the left arm.”

  Severa thought about this for a minute, and gave up. “Sorry?”

  He smiled. “Your own shield protects your left side. See?” He demonstrated with a dish-cover. “In a shield-wall, your right side is protected by the shield of the man next to you. But if you’re not in a shield-wall, there’s nothing to guard your right side. So injuries to the sword-arm are fairly common. The first time it happens, you spend a couple of days relying on your friends to do everything for you, then you realise how very tedious that is and learn to use your other hand.”

  “This is not the first time you’ve been wounded then?”

  “Not the first, no. Although, possibly, the most painful –”

  She came over and took the skimming spoon from him. “Sit down. If you pass out you’ll knock all the bowls over and I haven’t got time to clean up the mess.”

  He sank gratefully onto the bench, leaned his head back against the wall, and closed his eyes. He had gone very pale again, and she remembered that it was less than half a month since he had been at death’s door.

  “Go and lie down,” she said, her voice unusually tender.

  “Unless I’m in your way, I’d rather stay here,” he said. He opened his eyes and tried to find another smile, but this time it didn’t work. “It’s a very nice hut, but having counted all the onions several times there’s nothing to hold my attention, so I think – and remember –”

  “Well, stay here and watch me, if that’s so much more fascinating. I’ll explain the process of cheesemaking to you if you like.”

  “That’s probably over my head, at least until I feel a bit more alive. It looks very complicated. If you can talk while you work, tell me about yourself instead. I had not thought to find someone so exotic on a remote upland farm.”

  Severa laughed, but there was a forced sound to it. “Exotic? I’ve been called a lot of things, but never that.”

  “No? Your looks and colouring are very striking. You’re a follower of the White Christ, very unusual outside a city. You speak well. You’re an unusually skilled doctor. Your name is Latin. Exotic seems a fair description. It’s like finding a rose growing in the middle of the ocean.”

  She laughed again, more happily this time. “My husband said something similar once, though he wasn’t quite so complimentary about it. I do sometimes feel like a blackbird in the snow. It’s all due to my grandfather. He had a great reverence for the old Empire. His forefathers were surgeons to Macsen Wledig – Magnus Maximus, my grandfather called him – or so he claimed. This scalpel, he used to say, operated on an Emperor once! Then he’d wink, and say, Mind you, it’s had four new blades and two new handles since then!”

  Eadwine smiled at the obvious affection in her tone.

  “What was his name?”

  “Germanianus Severus Aurelianus,” she said, rolling the syllables. “Everybody here called him Garbanion, which annoyed him intensely. He wasn’t from round here, you see. He came from somewhere far away north and west, near the mountains and the sea, not far from the – the Great Wall, near a great city whose name I can’t remember –”

  “Caer Luel?”

  She looked up from pressing curds into the cheese mould, surprised. “Yes, that was it. How did you know?”

  “It’s the only city I’ve heard of near the western end of the Wall. Why did he leave?”

  “He quarrelled with his king.” She looked sad. “I don’t know the details. It made him unhappy to talk about it. He was a fervent Christian – which is why I honour his god for his sake, although without a priest I’m sure I must be doing all sorts of things wrong – and that was one of the causes of the quarrel, but there was more to it than that. So he and his wife and their children and their servant packed up and left. He said – please don’t laugh at me – he said there was still an Emperor,
a long, long way away in the East, and he was going there. Somewhere where the world was still run properly, he said, with no petty tyrants and no jumped-up kings. Is there such a place? You come from the east.”

  “Not far enough east, I think. Certainly there’s no Emperor where we come from. I talked to a sailor on a wine ship once though, and he told me about a sea with no tides and endless sunshine, far away in the south, and a great city at the end of the world, all built of white stone and gold, where a mighty Emperor ruled in a palace of painted marble. He was probably spinning tall tales – sailors are like fishermen – but I suppose it could have been your grandfather’s Emperor.”

  “I hope so. I’d like to think he was going to a real place – even though, as you can see, he never got there. When they reached Combe village one of the children fell sick and his wife – my grandmother – refused to go a step further until the child was better. The village headman gave them shelter, and by the time the child had recovered it was winter, and then his wife fell pregnant, and then it was winter again. And by then the village had grown to like having a doctor living with them, and built him a house, and his wife had made friends in the village and was enjoying being the wife of an important man. So they stayed another year, and then another, and then his son married a local girl and settled down, and so with one thing and another they never got any further.”

  “Was he happy here?”

  “Not really. He felt stifled, I think, and he always regretted not having gone on. His son – my father – called him a silly old fool whenever he talked about the Empire. So he talked to me about it instead, probably from the cradle and certainly for as long as I can remember. He said the Emperors would come back one day to reclaim Britannia, and that when they did they would value people who remembered the old ways.”