by Anna Elliott
“I don’t like it.” He spoke in a deep, heavily accented voice, addressing Fidach. “There’s no place for a woman in this band.”
Instantly, Fidach swung round on him. The red-haired man was a hand’s breadth beneath his leader in height, but far more heavily built, with broad bands of muscle stretching across his chest and powerfully built shoulders and arms. Still, Isolde saw him flinch, visibly, before Fidach’s stare. Fidach’s face was expressionless, as he stood a moment, looking down at the other man. Then, indifferently, almost carelessly, he raised one hand and brought it down across the other man’s face in a smashing blow that sent him sprawling to the ground.
Fidach turned to the other men. “You know as well as Esar here the bargain I made with Trystan. Does anyone else question my decision?”
Another stir of uneasiness went round the group of remaining men, and then a murmur of denial. “Good.” Fidach spoke over his shoulder to Isolde, though without looking in her direction again. “Get yourself ready. We leave at once.”
Chapter Eleven
ISOLDE FELT A TOUCH ON her arm and turned her head to find Hereric watching her with a worried frown. His remaining hand moved in a rapid series of signs.
Isolde not eat?
Isolde nodded. “Yes, I’ll eat. Thank you, Hereric.”
She took a mouthful of the round of bread one of Fidach’s men had given her and Hereric to share. It was slightly burned on one side and was flecked with bits of gravel from the grinding stone that she kept having to pick out with her fingers before she took a bite. Isolde chewed, swallowed, and told herself grimly and for the dozenth time since they’d left the abandoned villa that questioning whether she’d chosen right was like asking whether a man would rather be run through with a sword or a knife.
She could, she supposed, have refused to accompany Fidach and his band. But she and Hereric couldn’t have risked staying much longer where they were. And—so far, at least—they were safer with a group of armed men about them than they would have been on their own. Isolde took another bite of bread and glanced at Hereric, sitting beside her on the ground and leaning back against a fallen log.
Above the flaxen beard, his face was still pale, his eyes sunken by illness. But there was no flush of color on his cheeks or any unnatural brightness in his eyes that would mean the fever had returned, and so far as Isolde could tell, the day’s journey didn’t seem to have done him any other harm. He was still too weak to walk, so two of Fidach’s men had been carrying him between them in a sling fashioned from a pair of sturdy branches and a blanket of stitched-together goat hides.
They had traveled through dense forest, following no track that Isolde could see and had met with no one at all on the way. Still, the signs of the raids and warfare that had ravaged this region were plain. Occasionally Isolde had seen a patch of blackened ground that marked a burned settlement, and once they’d crossed an open field where a long-ago battle must once have been waged. The dead had been buried shallow in one mass grave, and the soil over them had started to erode away, so that here and there among the grass a white bone jutted out of the ground: a tapered thigh bone or a smooth, rounded skull.
The men of the outlaw band murmured uneasily among themselves as they passed the old battlefield, and Isolde saw several make signs against evil or mutter charms meant to keep ghosts at rest. They passed the burned settlements, though, without a second glance. Isolde wondered whether that made it less likely that they had done the burning themselves or more. She might know next to nothing, yet, about Fidach or his men. But lands torn by constant fighting and war drew bands like this one. Bands of the outlaw, the mad, and the discontented who preyed on the lawless countryside like ravens on carrion.
Now there was only the deep, brooding stillness of the forest all around; Isolde might have been alone in the world, save for Hereric, Cabal, and Fidach’s band. The very stillness and isolation seemed to drive home the fact that she’d just put all three of their lives into the hands of these men.
They were stopped in a small patch of clearing surrounded by towering oak trees, Fidach having called a halt to rest and eat. Isolde had been surprised at that; Fidach had all the marks of a man who drove his men hard, and she’d not have expected him to grant them the luxury of a meal at midday. But the men were now grouped a little distance away from where she and Hereric sat, passing a skin of ale around their circle and sharing out more of the coarse brown bread. They ate in silence, and Isolde thought that the mood among them was sullen. Or maybe this was how they always behaved when so closely under their leader’s eye. Fidach snapped out orders, and the men—all of them, seemingly—sprang to obey. So far, Isolde had seen few of them even meet their leader’s gaze, much less argue or answer back when he spoke.
Her gaze went briefly to the red-haired man Esar’s face, still smeared with blood from his broken nose. Small wonder, Isolde thought, if none of the others voiced an objection to her presence here, whether they agreed or disagreed with Esar. None of them had so far approached or spoken to Isolde, either. But now, sitting beside Hereric she could feel them watching her, exchanging muttered comments and smiles that made her fight not to draw her cloak more tightly about her shoulders.
Cabal was lying at her feet, and she let him finish the remains of the bread, just as Fidach’s voice called out for the journey to resume. Isolde rose, brushing crumbs from her skirts, and Hereric’s bearers came to lift him into the carrying sling once more. They were a pair of young men, and Nubian, Isolde thought, with coal-black skin and long hair divided into hundreds of tiny braids. Their faces were so alike that Isolde thought they must be brothers—or even twins—with high cheekbones, knife-sharp features, and thickly lashed brown eyes.
Both gave Isolde quick, curious glances as they lifted Hereric between them, and one smiled, teeth flashing white in his dark face. Hereric seemed to know them. Back at the ruined villa, he’d greeted them both with a slow, delighted grin and a few hand signs, and the young men had responded with greetings in what Isolde thought must be their own tongue.
Two nights ago, when the fever had broken and Isolde had first told Hereric where Trystan had gone, she asked him what he knew of Fidach’s band. But the answer had told her nothing but what she already knew. Hereric …Trystan … a sign she thought might have been travel …years ago.
Maybe if she’d known more of Hereric’s language of gestures, he might have been able to tell her more. Or if he’d still had the use of both hands. Since the fever had broken, he’d been communicating with her in simple signs, and every so often he would raise the stump of his arm as though about to form a sign that required both hands, and then stop as though momentarily bewildered. And each time it happened, Isolde would hold her breath, her whole body tightening as she waited for grief for what he’d lost to sweep over the big Saxon man.
But it never had. Every time, Hereric would look from the bandaged stump to his good hand and shrug. Then his broad brow would clear, and he would look up at Isolde and form a sign he could still make. And Isolde would breathe again and think that if whatever hardships he had known in the past had stripped Hereric down to some simple, childlike inner core, that core was also immensely strong.
“Lady?”
The voice made Isolde draw in a sharp breath and turn to find that one of the group had detached himself from the rest and come to stand beside her. He was a big man, and older than most of the rest, some forty or forty-five, his body heavyset and with a paunch spilling over the top of his belt. His head was balding, fringed by scanty nut-brown hair, and beneath his face was jowly and round. Hardly a handsome man, but his brown eyes were gentle, his voice hesitant and deep.
But before he could speak again, one of the rest of the group—a tall, thin man with black hair and a tattered beard—cupped his hands about his mouth and called out something towards them in a tongue Isolde didn’t recognize. She could, though, make a fair guess at the meaning of the words, since the man before her blushed
furiously, a tide of color sweeping up his short neck and flooding his face. He shook his head, though, like a bull twitching away from a stinging fly.
“Sorry, lady. Don’t mind that lot. Not used to having a woman in the group, that’s all.”
Isolde ignored the sharp little stings of tension dancing up and down her spine, and said, “Do you know, I’d gotten that.” Then, because she wanted to put as much distance as she could between herself and any rumors these men might have heard of the High Queen Isolde—and part, too, because she felt unaccountably sorry for the man before her—she added, “You don’t have to call me Lady. Just Isolde will do.”
The man continued to look uncomfortable. “Thank you, la—well, thanks. That’s right kind of you. Name’s Eurig.” He made a movement as though about to offer her his hand, then changed his mind and rubbed the back of his neck, flushing again. “Just wanted to say …to tell you that you don’t have to worry none. About the rest of the men, I mean. You’re safe with us.”
Cabal was standing close at her side, and though his ears were cocked and the muscles beneath his brown-and-white coat bunched, he’d not yet bared his teeth or growled. Isolde said, slowly, “Thank you.”
Eurig ducked his head and looked embarrassed once again. “Don’t mention it. Promised Trystan I’d look after you a bit, till he could come back, that’s all.”
Several questions seemed to crowd themselves into Isolde’s mind all at once, but she forced herself to choose just one. “Where is Trystan now?”
Eurig’s face reddened once more, though, and he muttered, looking at the ground, “Not far. He’ll meet up with us soon, I reckon, with a bit of luck.” He gave Isolde one last quick glance from under his brows, then turned away. “Best be getting on, now, la— Isolde. Fidach won’t be pleased if he sees us talking instead of getting ready to move again.”
DUSK WAS FALLING WHEN FIDACH AGAIN called a halt. They had crossed from the forest into wet, marshy ground, patched with fields of reeds and stunted bushes, with silvery pools of open water glistening between the tracts of black boggy ground. Here and there a gnarled, misshapen tree clung to one of the tiny islands of dry ground.
A fog had come up, wreathing the landscape eerily in drifting silver threads, and the air was filled with a muddy, decaying smell. Up ahead, Isolde could hear Fidach snapping out orders, though she could see only the vaguest outline of him and the rest of the men. She turned to Eurig. He’d not spoken to her again all throughout the long day’s walk—none of the men had—but she’d noticed that he was never more than a handful of paces away from her and took care to position himself between her and the rest of the band.
Now he had come once more to stand at her side, and Isolde asked him, “Are we to camp here for the night?”
Eurig shook his head. “Not here. Fidach sent scouts ahead to made sure the encampment’s safe, that’s all.”
The scouts must have found all secure, for a short while later Isolde again heard voices from up ahead, and then Fidach’s voice, shouting that they could move on. Darkness was closing in, and Isolde had continually to watch where she stepped to keep from slipping off into one of the holes of sucking black mud that littered the path. When at last she did look up, then, the settlement before her seemed to have appeared by some eldritch art of enchantment out of the drifting mist.
It was a crannog: a grouping of round, reed-thatched huts raised on oak piles above the swampy ground and connected by a network of swaying rope-and-wood causeways. Lighted torches had been set at intervals along the causeways and above the doors of several of the huts, forming bright glowing orbs amidst the patchy fog. Talking amongst themselves and shouting across the narrow bridges, the men began to disperse themselves among the small thatched buildings.
Eurig stepped first onto one of the precarious walkways, then belatedly looked round and offered a hand to Isolde. She shook her head, though, holding tight to the rope guardrail with one hand as she followed, her other hand grasping Cabal’s collar. The wooden slats beneath her feet shook and creaked under their combined weight, and Cabal whined, stepping with reluctance from one plank to the next. The causeway held, though, and Isolde stepped off onto one of the small wooden platforms that formed the foundation for the round-built huts.
Eurig had stepped silently to one side, his homely face slightly nervous in the flare of torchlight, and Isolde saw that Fidach himself awaited them, standing motionless beside one of the platform’s pair of dwellings.
“You’ll sleep here.”
He gestured to the nearer of the two huts—empty, it appeared. Through the open doorway of the other, Isolde saw that Hereric lay on a rough pallet just inside the hut, his two bearers already gone. She nodded. “Thank you.”
Fidach ignored the thanks and stood watching her, as though expecting her to say something more. Isolde realized that he was waiting for her to ask about Trystan. Some instinct, though, stopped her tongue—a certainty that the man before her would seize on the first sign of weakness she let herself show. She kept silent, and after a moment she thought a flicker of amusement appeared in his leaf-brown gaze, as though he’d read her thoughts and understood the reason for her refusal to ask.
Then, in an instant, the look was gone, and Fidach’s glance flicked disinterestedly from Isolde to Cabal, standing close at her side. His gaze rested briefly on the big dog and then traveled back to Isolde.
“I’ll take the dog. He’ll be useful in keeping away wolves.”
Isolde’s skin prickled unpleasantly. She was tired and hungry both, and the whole scene—the buzz of the marsh insects, the pointed roofs of the huts, the flickering light and creaking sway of the platform beneath her feet—all felt suddenly unreal, like something out of nightmare. As though in leaving the Roman villa, she’d stepped from one world into the Other or somehow out of time.
She answered calmly, though, keeping both anger and fear from her tone. “No. Cabal stays with me.”
Fidach’s face darkened. “Are you saying you don’t trust my men?”
At some time while they’d been talking, Eurig had gone, vanishing down another causeway into the mist; she and Fidach were alone. Isolde kept her hand on Cabal’s collar and ordered herself not to react to the tone or look away from Fidach’s gaze. “Should I?”
Fidach was silent a long moment, watching her. The anger had gone from his face, leaving it expressionless, cold, and hard. He wore, still, the fantastical robe of many-hued furs, and looked, with his tattooed cheeks and hooked nose, like an Otherworld creature himself. Isolde thought too that his face looked oddly flushed in the glare of the torchlight, with a sheen of sweat brightening the swirling blue marks on his cheekbones. Then, abruptly, he threw back his head and gave a harsh bark of a laugh.
“No. You shouldn’t. You’d be a fool to trust a single one of them any farther than you can see.”
ISOLDE STOOD IN THE DOORWAY OF the hut, listening to the shrill cry of a night bird outside. Her whole body felt gritty and dirty with the day’s travel, but she was hesitant to undress enough that she could wash. From the huts of the crannog surrounding her own, she could hear men’s voices, faintly muffled by the drifting fog, and the occasional startlingly clear laugh or shout that made the hairs on the back of her neck prick. And she’d found no latch on the hut’s leather-hinged door.
In the end, she pushed the door shut and told Cabal to lie down across the threshold. Fidach must have ordered the supplies she and Trystan had brought from the boat so many days ago deposited here; everything—blankets, food stores, the bundle that held her clean clothes—lay in an heap on the floor. Isolde found a half-empty waterskin, unlaced her gown, and stripped to her shift. She washed quickly, scrubbing her face, her arms, and her neck. Then she found her single remaining clean gown, dropped it over her head, and lay down on the straw pallet, her heart beating fast and hard.
The hut was windowless, but there was a smoke hole cut in the center of the roof, allowing enough moonlight to enter tha
t she could just make out vague shapes in the darkness: Cabal, curled by the door, the room’s single low table, a storage basket, and a rickety stool. There were no blankets, but she had her cloak for cover, and the night wasn’t cold. She couldn’t sleep, though, despite the ache of weariness behind her eyes. No reason, she thought again, to trust Fidach and believe that Trystan would soon join them here. But then no definite reason, either, to think he’d lied. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine Trystan and Hereric living in this place, years before, amongst these men.
She and Hereric had shared the meal of bread and stew one of the men had left in their hut, and Cabal had finished off the remains. She’d thought of asking Hereric whether his bearers had told him anything of Trystan—or of Fidach’s plans for them. But Hereric had been so tired by the journey that he was almost nodding off over his food, and it had seemed like cruelty to ask him to search for signs that he could still form and that she would understand. Instead, she’d checked his bandages and given him a draft that would help him sleep, since she knew the healing arm still caused him pain. And then she’d left him, knowing that she would hear him if he woke or cried out in the night.
Now Isolde shifted on the lumpy pallet, feeling blades of straw pricking her even through the wool of her gown. And then she jerked upright, her heart giving a sickening lurch, as the sound of a soft footfall came from just outside the door of the hut. In an instant, she had thrown off her cloak and was on her feet, her fingers closing round the hilt of the knife she’d left within easy reach on the floor. Moving as silently as she could, willing the boards under her feet not to creak, she edged towards the door, then eased it open—only partway, but still the man standing outside jerked back, biting back a cry of surprise.