Paths of Exile

by Carla Nayland

  He put his arm round Severa, drew her close so that her head leaned against his shoulder, and strolled out from the shadows.

  “We’ll be seen!” she protested.

  “Doesn’t matter.” He paused by the next building, a cattle byre judging from the noises inside, and looked casually around. No-one was paying them any attention. He meandered on to the next shed. A hurrying groom sidestepped them with an apology and a muffled snigger. They were near the damaged end of the headquarters building now, where he had hoped to find a way in, but the guard on the north-west gate looked irritatingly alert. He stopped just within the guard’s field of view, backed Severa against the side wall, stooped and kissed her.

  “Sorry,” he murmured, coming up for air.

  “I’m not,” she hissed back, and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  Out of the corner of his eye Eadwine could see the guard grinning.

  “Giggle,” he whispered. “Or shriek, or something, but not too loud –”

  He stepped backward, pulling her off-balance so that she staggered against him as if drunk, giggling helplessly, and led her behind the headquarters building. A man skulking round the fort on his own would almost certainly have been challenged. But a man and a woman creeping into the ruins together? Everyone knew what they were up to.

  It was dark and quiet under the stone wall. Broken tiles and fallen stones littered the ground, and a couple of sizeable bushes and a rowan tree had taken root. The moon hung low in the sky to the east, casting deep shadows on this side of the building. Eadwine peered up at the wall. The end wall still stood to full height, but a section of the clerestory had fallen in and taken part of the roof with it, leaving a gap where the back wall stood only about eight feet high. He paced the distance from the corner. The collapsed section was nowhere near the shrine room, which was always in the middle. It would lead into one of the old offices, which in turn would lead into the hall, and from the hall he could get to the shrine and the vault. But there were two guards in the hall to get rid of first, and it would have to be done with no noise at all that might raise an alarm.

  “Severa? I may need your help again. You were useful just now.”

  “Useful,” she repeated, in an odd tone. “Oh. Good. Delighted to help.”

  Eadwine was studying the stonework intently, running his hands over it. No obliging creeper to climb up, but the masonry was chipped and cracked from centuries of neglect.

  “Good,” he said absently. He flexed his stiff shoulder, stood back slightly and jumped lightly for the top of the wall. A couple of footholds, a strong pull with his left arm, and he was up, lying flat along the top of the wall. No-one shouted a challenge. He peered over the other side. Moonlight slanted in patches through the broken roof, and all there seemed to be on the inner side was a floor littered with more roof tiles. A rat skittered across the floor and disappeared into a hole, rattling the tiles as it went. Eadwine held his breath. No-one came. So small disturbances were considered normal. Very slowly, he lowered himself over the inner side until he was hanging at full stretch from both hands, and let himself drop the last few inches to the floor. He made no more noise than the rat, and attracted no more attention.

  He climbed back to help Severa scramble over the wall and together they crept to the inner doorway and peered cautiously out into the shadowed expanse of the great hall. It was lit only by a torch stuck in a wall bracket by the arch that led out into the courtyard, and by the moonlight that filtered in through the clerestory windows high above. Straw was piled high at the near end, and there was a strong smell of bat droppings and mice. Along the rear wall the old doorways were black shadows like missing teeth. All the doors had been looted for firewood long ago. The two guards were lounging in the archway, showing no inclination to leave the comforting circle of torchlight. One was short and stout and picking his nose with great attention to detail. The other was tall and talkative.

  “– I told you that ‘orse wasn’t no good,” he was lecturing. “Bent fetlocks, see?”

  His short colleague grunted, and began excavating his other nostril.

  “– now what you should’ve done, right,” continued the tall guard, “you should’ve took a good look at ‘is fetlocks. Always tell a good ‘orse by ‘is fetlocks, you can –”

  “Right,” said the short guard, with the glazed despondency of one who sees an evening that promised to be merely dull turning into one of screaming tedium.

  “– see, if the fetlocks is good an’ straight, right, that ‘orse’ll win races wi’ a sack on ‘is back –”

  The short guard slouched against the wall and stifled a yawn. Beside him, the voice droned on.

  “– Good fetlocks, that’s what you need, right, never let you down –”

  In his other ear, from the dark interior of the hall, a woman’s voice murmured, “Hello, big boy.”

  The short guard turned, astonished, and was further astonished to find a woman’s softly curved arm go round his neck and a woman’s hand sliding down over the front of his trousers. He left his spear leaning against the wall and groped into the darkness, a foolish leer on his face. Behind him, the flood of horse expertise came to an abrupt end in a muffled thump and a brief scuffle, but the guard paid it no attention. His evening was suddenly full of unknown promise.

  Which ended unhappily when the arm round his neck clamped its hand over his mouth and the other hand clenched tightly and painfully in a very sensitive place. The guard froze, his eyes watering.

  “Now then, big boy,” murmured the voice, in the same silky tones, “don’t make a noise or you’ll be a very small boy indeed, you understand? Good lad. Now just you step this way, round the corner –” a sharp tug dispelled any thoughts of disobedience “– where my friend can hit you with half a brick. Good lad.”

  Severa stooped over the prone body, scrubbing her hand on her cloak.

  “Have you killed them?”

  “Shouldn’t think so,” Eadwine grunted, struggling with the guard’s tunic. “If you’re not going to help me get their clothes off, go and fetch a couple of armfuls of straw.”

  “Straw?”

  “Just do it!”

  Ten minutes later, the captain of the night watch glanced in from the entrance gate and noted with satisfaction the two dark figures leaning on their spears under the arch. All was quiet, all was well. He exchanged a joke with the guards on the entrance gate and strolled back to his dinner.

  In the dark shrine room, Eadwine and Severa were struggling to haul a very heavy stone grave slab clear of the trapdoor.

  “Should have made the guards shift it before you tied them up –” Severa panted.

  “Quiet!”

  They heaved again, heels braced against the floor, and the slab slid a few more inches.

  Severa felt along the edge of the trapdoor. “It’s free!” She grasped the handle.

  “Don’t lift it!” Eadwine hissed. “Are you mad?”

  Severa recoiled from the trapdoor as if it would bite. “What –?”

  Eadwine picked up the guard’s spear and levered the trapdoor open a crack with the butt-end, standing well back.

  “Attacotti Nell!” he whispered into the gap.

  There was a brief disappointed silence, and then the sound of a very large and heavy stone being set down with some care.

  “What kept ye?” said Drust’s voice.

  Eadwine peered very cautiously over the top of the wall. The ruins seemed deserted, and nothing moved in the bushes or the shadows at the foot of the wall.

  “All clear,” he whispered into the dark interior. “Cross one at a time and wait in the bushes. Severa, you come first and keep watch from the corner.”

  Some shuffling from below indicated a certain amount of competition to give the girl a leg up. Eadwine lowered her to drop gently on the far side, and swung his leg over the wall to follow.

  At that moment a man came round the corner.

  Severa shrank back into the s
hadows. Eadwine tensed to spring, but the newcomer was a little too far away and in any case seemed to have noticed nothing amiss. He was weaving a little as he walked, apparently having had a skinful and looking for a convenient place to get rid of some of it

  The man belched, reeled against the wall, got his balance back, and then hitched up his tunic, unfastened his waist-cord and pulled the front of his trousers down. A small sigh of anticipated relief, and a pool started spreading around his feet.

  Severa, crouching in the shadows, froze. Eadwine, balanced astride the wall, froze. If only the man did not look up! If only he was the type who liked to jet some inoffensive insect off its stalk, or draw a picture on the stonework.

  Unfortunately, he was the type who liked to survey the world around him. He rocked back on his heels, and tipped his head back to contemplate the sky and the stars.

  Eadwine leapt as soon as he saw the man’s mouth open, but it was too far to prevent the man yelling his alarm before they tumbled together into the mud. The other man was much superior to Eadwine in weight and strength, but he was slowed by drink and hampered by his loosened trousers. He succeeded in smashing the dagger out of Eadwine’s hand to send it flying against the wall, and then Eadwine planted his knee hard in the man’s belly, rolled on top of him as he tried to double up, and forced the man’s face into the mud to choke off his second shout for help. An elbow driven hard into the kidneys, a chopping blow to the back of the neck and the man lay still.

  Eadwine picked himself up, breathing hard. Severa had retrieved his dagger and looked ready to use it, and Ashhere was halfway through climbing over the wall. But it was too late.

  “This way, men!” a voice called. It was a young, well-bred voice, with the precise intonations of Elmet. “Follow me!”

  Half a dozen men at least, judging from the noise, under a keen young captain who believed that mysterious yells for help in the night were part of his concern. Too many to fight, and no time to run. Eadwine snapped at Ashhere, “Back!” and swore savagely under his breath. He was caught, and he would never have been here but for the woman’s crazy idea.

  The company of soldiers ran round the corner, and Eadwine turned on Severa and struck her to the ground.

  The young officer found himself confronting a squalid scene. One man sprawled on his face with his trousers round his ankles. A woman cowering against the wall. A second man – no, only a youth, not much more than a boy – standing over her, shouting threats in the hideously rustic local accent.

  “– you bitch! Slut! Just like your mother you are, not wed two months and you’re whoring a fancy man behind my back –”

  “I never!” wailed the woman, clutching at his upraised arm. “I never did! I’m a good girl, I am!”

  The officer grimaced in disgust, and not just at the stink of urine. His lord was right, these mountain brigands lived like swine and rutted like stray dogs.

  “What’s going on here?” he demanded, although really it could hardly have been more obvious.

  “That bastard was shagging my wife!”

  “He made me do it –!” bawled the woman, bursting into noisy tears. “I’m a good girl, I am!”

  The man on the floor groaned, and Eadwine took the opportunity to deliver a swift kick to the head. He lay still again.

  “Hey, hey, easy, lad –!” began the officer, and broke off as the outraged husband turned on him like a tiger, clearly more than half-drunk and in the throes of a jealous fury.

  “She invite you as well? Eh? Eh? You want a fight as well? Eh? Eh?”

  The officer stepped neatly out of the way. It was not honourable to turn weapons on a drunk, even a belligerent one.

  “Now then, you come along quietly –” he began, and was interrupted by a shriek from the woman.

  “You take your hands off of him! He’s my husband, ain’t he? You mind your own business!”

  The officer gave up. There was no honour in a sordid brawl between two drunks over a woman, especially a woman who wasn’t going to be grateful for being rescued. He and his men had better things to do with their time, like watching grass grow. They beat a dignified retreat.

  Eadwine watched them out of sight, whispered over the wall, “Ash! All clear!”, and helped Severa to her feet. He was grinning with the fierce delight of success, and something more.

  “You were superb!” There had been no time for instructions or explanations. She had understood in an instant what he was trying to do, and had played up to him brilliantly. “You’re a marvel, Severa, a marvel!”

  “Truly?”

  Her hand was warm in his and she moved closer, but Drust came puffing last over the wall and it was time to go.

  Ashhere pulled the door of the chapel closed behind him and stepped reluctantly out into the freezing wind, shouldering his pack and wishing in vain for dry clothes. It had been easy enough to get out of the fort. Heavy clouds frequently obscured the moon, allowing them to thread a way unseen through the dark and slumbering stable blocks, and the two guards who should have been patrolling the north-east and north-west walls had been sheltering from the wind and playing a peaceful game of dice with their colleague at the river-gate. Eadwine had had the foresight to bring a rope, so all they had needed to do was creep up the stairway to the deserted ramparts and climb down the rope to freedom. Ashhere had hoped for a rest and a meal at the chapel, since there seemed to be no sign of any pursuit, but they had only paused to grab dried meat and bread out of the packs before setting off along a steep path through the scrubby cattle pastures above Combe village. He bit off another chunk of dried venison, realised the others were already well ahead, and had to run to catch up. Severa was leading, setting a great pace for so small a woman, but then she wasn’t carrying a week’s worth of supplies and she wasn’t soaked and freezing from wading the river. She had stayed in the fort to retrieve the rope, and then simply walked out of the back gate and up the track to Combe. Nobody ever challenged a woman carrying a couple of buckets. At least, that was her explanation. Ashhere was entertaining certain private thoughts about cats, or possibly bats. He touched both his amulets in turn. He had decided to keep the replacement as well. Thunor would be twice as helpful now.

  Two miles away and five hundred feet below, a couple of sleepy guards were reluctantly shuffling through the stone courtyard to begin their watch.

  “Right, Mabon, Hywel,” – huge yawn – “off you go, you lucky beggars –”

  No response from the two figures propped either side of the archway.

  “’Ere, wake up, you lazy sods –” He reached out and shook the nearest figure by the shoulder. “Mabon?” A harder shake. “Mabon!”

  The head lolled slowly forward, forward, forward, rolled off and fell to the floor –

  “Aaargh!”

  – where it was revealed to be a roughly spherical bundle of straw stuffed into Mabon’s woollen cap.

  “Captain!”

  “I think they’ve found your straw men and the trussed chickens in the cellar,” Severa commented, as the horns blared in the valley.

  “Sooner than I hoped,” Eadwine answered, quickening his pace. “Lucky there was a big feast for the visitors. We’ll have another hour before anyone’s sober enough to ride.”

  “Yon eager pup wasna drunk,” Drust observed, “ and I’ll bet his boss wasna.”

  “So we get a move on.”

  “They’ll ride ahead and block the road,” Lilla panted, a few paces behind, “and if they recognise you –”

  “I wasn’t planning to go by the road.”

  They had reached one of the cols on the ridge joining the Swine Hill to Shivering Mountain. On the far side another blind valley bit into the hills, and beyond it the fitful moon gleamed on a line of dark cliffs crowned by rocky teeth.

  “That’s Kyndyr!” Lilla exclaimed. “Luned says there’s no way over it!”

  Severa laughed, as clear and buoyant a sound as the skylark’s song. “There is if you’re with me! Tha
t valley is Combe’s hafod, and I spent seven summers retrieving stray sheep from Kyndyr. No-one else would go there.”

  “Don’t blame them,” Ashhere muttered, fumbling for his amulets.

  She laughed again. “Don’t fear, I won’t let the trolls eat you! Come on!”

  She leapt away down the path, her hair flying in the wind, and Ashhere wondered why she seemed so happy on a freezing moor in the middle of the night. Women were contrary creatures, right enough. He did not see that Eadwine was close by her side, nor did he notice when each reached for the other’s hand.

  First light found them in a bleak wilderness of peat. More precisely, at the bottom of a twisting channel where an icy stream had carved its way through the peat to the underlying gritstone. The whole plateau top was riven with these channels, like the cracks in a giant cowpat, and they were deep enough that even a tall man could not see over the sides. Ashhere had no idea where they were. All he knew was that they had walked all night with hardly any rest, first taking narrow paths through thick woodland and across a marshy valley floor, then crossing a river at a deep ford, then a lung-bursting climb up an ever-steepening rocky valley that pierced the hillside like a sword slash, and finally this maze of peat, sometimes following the channels and sometimes having to thrash and slither over the ridges from one channel to another. In daylight it would have been arduous. At night, having to grope for each step and continually stumbling on rocks and disintegrating peat, it had been unimaginably slow and exhausting. They were all wet, cold, weary and peat-stained, and Ashhere half thought he would have preferred to take his chances with the Lord of Navio’s soldiers on the road.