by Anna Elliott
Everything—the brightness of Fidach’s gaze, the flush of color on his cheeks beneath the tattoos, the gauntness of his frame beneath the many-furred robe, her own surprise the day before when Fidach had called a rest at midday, and now the smear of blood on his palm—suddenly came together in Isolde’s mind. If she’d thought about it, she would have realized it before. Or at the least sensed the pain in Fidach’s chest, like red-hot iron bars about his lungs.
Slowly, she shook her head. “No. We both of us know you’ll not see another turning of the seasons.”
The anger that flashed across Fidach’s gaze made her wonder briefly whether she would have done better to lie, but she knew that he would have known in a moment if she had. Then his features hardened and he laughed again, a harsh, unpleasant sound that stopped as suddenly as it began.
“You’ve courage, at any rate. There’s not one of my men who’d dare look at me and say what you just have.”
“Do they know?”
“They know I’m ill—but not how ill.” Fidach gave another bark of laughter. “The whisper is that I’ve sold my soul to the devil, and he comes to ride me at night. That’s why the flesh falls away from my body and my strength wanes. Though I would have sold my soul and gladly, if ever I’d had the chance. So perhaps it comes to the same in the end. And you know—” Fidach stopped, his eyes resting on Isolde’s face, a thin smile still playing about his mouth. “Fear of death lies at the root of all men’s other fears. No man fears battle itself—he fears that he will lose his life in the fight. No man fears simply the anger of his chief, should the chief find out …oh, for instance, that the man”—Fidach made an airy gesture with his hand that was belied by the hardening of his gaze—“that the man suffers from a falling sickness that makes him unfit to fight. No, what the man fears is that his chief, in anger, will condemn him to die because he is no longer worth the stench of his own dung.”
Isolde stopped herself from flinching as he spat the final words, his voice turning poisonously sharp. “Perhaps,” she said.
Fidach’s smile was a brief acknowledgment that he knew she was ordering herself not to say anything more. His eyes remained fixed on hers, and, just briefly, she saw something stir at the back of his gaze. Something that made her think that his manner, his voice, everything about him was done with as calculated an effect as the skulls on his walls. Though what lay behind the manner and the hard mask of his face she had no idea.
“So a dying man has a choice,” he went on. The look—whatever it had been—had gone, leaving his gaze icy hard. “He may fear everything—or he may fear nothing at all.”
Isolde silently wished she could be sure of what game it was that Fidach played—and why he had summoned her here. She felt as though she were balanced on a rope bridge as fine as a hair, stretched across raging falls.
Fidach’s mouth stretched in another thin-lipped smile, his face hardening and growing slightly predatory. “None of the men would believe you, should you try to persuade them that their chief will lie under the ground before the year’s end.”
Isolde met Fidach’s stare with a level look. “Why would I try?”
Fidach didn’t answer that but was silent a long moment, watching her. Then, abruptly, he said, “So you’re Trystan’s sister. Not much like him to look at, are you?”
The suddenness of the question caught Isolde off guard. Which is of course, she thought, exactly the intent. She drew breath and then said, with scarcely a perceptible pause, “No. But then we were born to different mothers.” Let Fidach assume they did share a father. She knew from long practice that a half-truth was always more believable than an outright lie.
“I see.” Fidach watched her intently a moment, then said, “And Trystan tells me he’s three years the older?”
“Two.”
Fidach’s answer came like the ringing slash of a sword. “Trystan said three.”
Isolde blocked out all awareness of Fidach’s illness, the constricting pain in his lungs; any sympathy for this man would be not only unwelcome, but also dangerous just now. Watching him, she tried to imagine what Fidach had been before he’d come to this strange place of dark water and pools of sucking mud, before he’d built this room for himself with its rows of grinning skulls. She wondered whether he might have begun as the spymaster or interrogator of some warlord or king somewhere—or whether his methods of asking questions were simply the means by which he ensured that no secrets among his band of men were kept from him.
She said, as evenly as she could, “Maybe you’re misremembering what Trystan said? I can’t imagine he would have gotten that wrong. And he is two years older than I am.”
She saw in Fidach’s face a brief flash of acknowledgment that the trap he’d laid for her had failed. Then he bared his teeth in another smile. “Trystan’s sister,” he said again. “Good. You can tell me much about Trystan that I’ve always wanted to know.”
ISOLDE SAT ON THE FLOOR BESIDE Hereric’s pallet, watching the last of the sunset’s glow fade from the western sky. The first stars were just beginning to wink out, and all about the marsh was filled with the sigh of the wind, the chirp of crickets, and the soft, occasional trill of a night bird. She passed the day in scrubbing the dust and dirt of travel from her own and Hereric’s clothes—using the battered tub Eurig had brought—and then mending any rents and tears.
Now Hereric’s tunic and breeches, and her second gown, stockings, and two shifts were spread about the floor of her hut next door to dry, and Hereric had fallen asleep after the evening meal of bread and thick stew they had shared. Eurig had brought them the food and had stayed to exchange a few words with Hereric. From time to time she’d caught glimpses of some of the guards posted here and there along the edges of the bog, forming what she thought must be a loose circle around the settlement. The guards wore gray and brown tunics and breeches that faded into the landscape, making them almost invisible. And apart from that, Isolde had seen no one since she’d left Fidach’s hut. The whole network of huts and causeways had remained eerily empty and still.
She had left the door to the hut open to catch the last of the day’s waning light, and from where she sat now, she could see Fidach’s hut squatting like a great brown toad amidst the other, smaller dwellings of the crannog. Fidach had questioned her closely about Trystan and about the childhood they’d shared, and she’d responded with answers as true as she could safely make them. When at last Fidach had put an end to the interview, her neck muscles were aching with tension, but Fidach was—apparently, at least—satisfied that she was neither more nor less than what Trystan had claimed.
Now, looking across at Fidach’s dwelling, Isolde remembered the outlaw leader’s predatory, wolfish smile and thought that he was indeed not unlike the dominant wolf of a pack. He must be very afraid, too, despite what he himself had said about a dying man’s having nothing to fear. A lead wolf holds his place only so long as his strength holds fast.
Isolde rubbed her eyes, then sat up abruptly as from somewhere close by came a sudden raucous burst of sound: men’s voices, shouts, and drunken laughter. And then, through the open doorway, she saw them, a group of perhaps twenty of the band, spilling from dry land onto one of the narrow rope bridges, weaving and swaying as they came, waving swords and heavy wooden clubs in the air. Their bodies—faces, arms, bare chests—were painted with swirling blue patterns like the heroes in the ancient tales, or like the tattoos on their chief’s own face.
Cabal had been asleep by her side, but at the sudden noise he woke and was on his feet, fur bristling. Isolde put a hand on his collar to hold him by her side and instinctively drew back into the hut and shut the door. She was remembering the pulsing drumbeats she’d heard that morning and the desertion of the crannog today. Preparation for something—a raid, she thought, it had to be—and now a triumphant return.
For the space of several moments, Isolde sat without moving in the semidarkness of Hereric’s hut, listening to the shouts and occ
asional snatches of song that reached her from outside and debating with herself whether to stay here for the night or go to her own pallet next door. She had almost decided to stay when a soft scratch sounded on the door, making her tense before she recognized Eurig’s voice.
“Lady? Are you there?”
Isolde rose and cracked open the door. Eurig was there, as well as Daka and Piye, and at sight of her, Eurig let out a breath of relief.
“Saw you weren’t in your own place.” He kept his voice low, barely audible over the shouts and laughter coming, Isolde now saw, from Fidach’s centrally placed hut. Extra torches had been lighted all around the perimeter of Fidach’s small island, the leaping flames and smoky orange glow making the place look ever more otherworldly and strange. “Hoped it was only that you’d stayed with Hereric here.”
“Is something wrong?” Isolde asked.
Eurig shook his head. “Might get a bit—well, noisy, like, that’s all,” he said. He paused, then added, “But if you want to go to your own bed, you’ll be safe enough. The three of us”—he made a gesture that included Piye and Daka—“we’ll make sure none of the rest get an idea to …er …trouble you with their company.”
Isolde didn’t bother to ask whether she needed a guard. The three men’s faces told her they thought she did. She nodded. “Thank you.” And then, as her eyes moved from Eurig to the other two, she noticed that one of the twins—Piye, she thought, from the iron ring he still wore on his right hand—had a stained bandage knotted about his upper arm.
“Are you wounded? Do you want me to see to that for you?” she asked.
Daka, standing at his brother’s side, seemed to hesitate a long moment before translating the question in a low-voiced mutter. Both the young men’s dark-skinned faces were impassive, all but expressionless in the gathering dusk, their long-lashed eyes studying her face.
Eyes still on her, Piye said something in an undertone to his brother. Daka replied in the same low-voiced tone, and Isolde saw Piye’s fingers move as though by reflex to the ring she’d given him the night before. Then, almost as one, the two brothers turned back to Isolde, and bowed their heads in agreement.
“Cut on his arm,” Daka said. “Not bad—he live. But some pain. If you can help, he be glad.”
Isolde cast a look back over her shoulder at Hereric. She’d not given him any of the poppy tonight, but he still slept almost as soundly as though she had. He lay on his back, mouth slightly open, his breathing even and slow. She turned back to Daka and the other two men. “Come next door. All my medicines are there.”
THE CUT ON PIYE’S ARM WAS long and ragged but not deep, and as Daka had said, not serious. Isolde made her examination by the light of a small oil lamp that Eurig had brought. Eurig had also stuffed a blanket into the gap between the floor and the door panel so that the light wouldn’t show from outside.
“Not that any of that lot are like to notice, the way they’re heading,” he had said with uncharacteristic grimness. “But better to be safe than wish you had been.”
Now, studying Piye’s wound, Isolde still could hear the sounds of drunken song and laughter from Fidach’s hut. Each burst of sound seemed to twitch through her every nerve, but she sat back, looking up at Daka. “You’re right. It’s not too bad. He should have it stitched, though, if it’s going to heal properly. Can you tell him that I’ll do it for him now, if he wants me to?”
Daka translated her words, and after studying her face a moment more, Piye nodded, giving her one of those grave, oddly formal bows and saying something in his own tongue that was clearly assent. Isolde cleaned the wound of dust and dried blood, then took out one of her bone needles and thread. Piye held himself utterly still as she started to stitch the wound, but she felt his muscles contract every time the needle pierced his skin and saw a glitter of sweat start on his brow. As Daka had said, the cut wouldn’t threaten Piye’s life, but it was still a constant, dragging pain.
Isolde was halfway finished before she realized that she’d slipped automatically into her habit of telling a story as she worked, had begun the tale without conscious thought, without even really hearing her own words. When she did realize it, she paused and glanced up first at Piye’s face then at Daka’s, to see whether her speaking made them uneasy. She saw nothing but taut control on both young men’s faces, though, and so she went on, since the cadence of the words always helped distract her from the pain she inevitably caused as well.
The tale she’d begun was a sad one, of a man who one day at twilight stole the sealskin of a beautiful selkie maid when she danced on the shore with her sisters, as selkies do at that hour of changing between night and day. The selkie agreed to become his wife, for without her sealskin, she could not return to the sea. And she lived with him through many years and bore him fine daughters and sons. But always she looked longingly out towards the sea. And then one day, her daughter found a glimmering seal’s skin hidden away in a chest in their home and went to her mother to ask what it might be. And so with a cry of joy, the selkie maid took the seal’s skin from her daughter’s hands and ran from the house, back towards the shore. She cried as she went, for she loved her children—and even her mortal husband. But still she went, for she loved the sea the more.
Isolde finished tying a clean bandage about Piye’s arm as she spoke the story’s final words, and for a moment the hut was silent, save for the continued sounds of revelry outside. Isolde hadn’t been sure how much of the story any of the men followed, so she was surprised, glancing round, to find Eurig watching her. His gentle brown eyes were dry, but there was a look of such aching sadness in their depths that Isolde asked, before she could stop herself, “Are you all right?”
At once, Eurig’s eyes fell, and he hunched his shoulders as though embarrassed. He cleared his throat, then said, “Fine—fine. It’s a sorrowful ending to a tale, is all.” And then, before Isolde could reply, he turned to Piye and Daka. “One of you’d better get down there”—he jerked his head towards Fidach’s hut—“for a bit, at least. Stand out like black wolves in a flock of sheep, the pair of you. But if one of you goes down and moves around the crowd, chances are no one will notice you’re not both there.” He snorted briefly. “Most of them are probably seeing double by now anyway.”
The brothers exchanged a quick, wordless look, and then Daka nodded and rose to his feet. “I go.” He turned and gave Isolde another sober-faced bow, and said, “I thank you. We be in your debt.”
When Daka had gone, Isolde started to tidy away the dirtied linens and pots of salve she’d used to clean Piye’s wound.
“Eurig—” She glanced up at him. “How was Piye hurt?”
Eurig had been helping to wind a spare strip of bandages, but at that the tips of his ears reddened again, and he bundled the whole of the linen awkwardly into an untidy knot that tangled in his hands. “Don’t know as how you want to hear that. Not a fit story for a lady’s ears, maybe.”
“Maybe not,” Isolde said. “But I’d like to hear. Unless you’re under oath not to speak of that as well?”
Eurig hesitated, then let out his breath, rubbing a hand across the stubble of beard on his chin. “No—nothing like that. It’s just—well, it was a raid, that’s all. No worse than most, I’ll warrant, but no better, either. Fidach got word of the armies massing just south of here, and—”
He broke off as Isolde interrupted quickly, “Armies? What armies?”
The sharpness of her tone made Eurig throw her a quick, curious glance, but he answered, “Octa of Kent’s forces. A day’s ride away—maybe even half that, by now. Word out on the road is that Octa’s come either to make alliance with King Cerdic or to make war on him and claim Cerdic’s lands for his own.”
“Cerdic,” Isolde repeated. “Cerdic of Wessex, you mean?” Which is a stupid question, she thought, even as the words left her mouth, because what other King Cerdic could Eurig possibly mean?
Eurig nodded. “Aye, that’s him.”
“A
nd the rumor is that he and Cerdic may be joining forces?”
Eurig shrugged. If he wondered at Isolde’s interest, he gave no sign. “As to that—who knows? Fidach pays well to keep informed of what happens between them that hold power in these parts—has to, a man in his place. He says not a one of the warlords within ten days’ ride from here could so much as wipe his—” Eurig stopped and glanced at Isolde. “Nose, without he gets to know of it, for all we’re well hidden in this place here. But as to Octa and Cerdic making peace between them. …”
Eurig paused again, brow creasing in a frown. “Not sure even Octa and Cerdic know for sure what’s going to happen between them now. They’ve never trusted each other a hair’s breadth, the two of them, that I do know—been at each other’s throats since they came to power like a couple of dogs fighting over first share of a kill. Still—” He shrugged again. “Reckon stranger things have happened.”
He stopped as Piye interrupted with a burst of speech in his own tongue. Eurig replied—slower and more laboriously than either Daka or Piye—in the same language the brothers used. Piye gave Isolde a long look in which she thought curiosity mingled again with that look that she couldn’t quite name. Then Eurig said, “He heard us using Octa’s name and wanted to know what we were speaking of, that’s all.”
With an effort, Isolde brought her thoughts back to the present and asked, “And that’s how Piye was hurt? In a raid on Octa’s armies?”
Eurig hesitated as though searching for a reply that would be fit for her ears. Then he seemed to simply give up, for his shoulders sagged and he nodded. “Aye. Caught a couple of Octa’s scouts. Hurt them just enough to let them know they could be hurting a lot more. Then promised to let them live if they’d tell where Octa’s supply wagons were and the kind of guard he had. Then they cut the scouts’ throats and left them to rot.”
“That’s what Piye told you?”
Eurig lifted one shoulder. “Some. And I can guess the rest. That’s usually how it goes. And if you’re going to say it’s a dirty day’s work, I won’t argue. But it’s no dirtier than would happen to any of us if we fell into the hands of Octa’s—or anyone else’s—men.”