by Anna Elliott
Isolde felt suddenly faint, and, heedless of the muddied ground she sank down, resting her forehead on her upraised knees. Octa had risen to the bait after all. The army encamped around her was preparing to march out.
IF HE WASN’T ALREADY IN HELL, he must be dying, then. He thought one of the loose, slithering memories that kept sliding through his grasp was of knowing he wasn’t likely to survive the night.
He felt a flicker of irritation, even in the midst of crushing pain. Adding insult to injury that dying should—Satan’s hairy black ass—hurt this bloody much. So much that he couldn’t get hold of what he would have wanted his last thoughts to be. Something—
And then like a jolt of lightning, like another stab with a red-hot sword, remembrance tore through him, and he thought, Isolde—
But it was too late. The cold was closing in around him, muffling him, making even the monotonous chanting sound impossibly distant and far off. The weight was pressing, pressing against his chest. Just for one blessed moment, he had a clear sight of Isolde’s face: heart-stoppingly beautiful, with its delicate features, dark-lashed gray eyes, and curling night-dark hair.
Then a wave of blackness reared up, swallowed him.
And everything was gone.
ISOLDE WOKE WITH A GASP TO the sound of men’s shouts, the clash of metal on metal—and blackness. Utter blackness, so that for a moment she blinked, disoriented, unable to remember where she was, or, for a panicked, thudding beat of her heart, think whether she could have gone blind.
Then remembrance flooded back in a rush. The journey from the abbey. Her audience with Octa. His order to take her back to this place, the prison hut.
She’d heard Octa’s army march out, towards the trap she and Cerdic had laid. Towards the valley where Cerdic’s armies were not pinned down by disease, but readied and waiting for Octa’s attack.
She’d established almost at once that there was no way of getting out of this place. The walls were built of uncut logs, the door a solid plank of heavy oak. She’d been trapped inside, in the midst of an empty camp. She remembered the fear that had washed through her at the realization. But she’d also gone two nights running without rest. And, with nothing else to do but sit and wait for what would come, she must have fallen asleep.
To wake, now, to the discovery that the camp around her was no longer empty.
Fear arrowed into her again. Because the shouts and screams and clash of battle outside could mean only one thing: that the fighting between Cerdic’s and Octa’s armies had been carried back here. Which might, she thought, have been a reason to hope for rescue. Save that Cerdic’s forces could have no way of knowing where she was. Nor, unless Cerdic himself was among them, could she imagine any of his men caring one way or the other whether she lived through this night or not. And—
Another realization struck her like the bolt of an arrow. The acrid scent of smoke was beginning to filter in from outside, catching in the back of Isolde’s throat. Cerdic’s men must be firing the camp.
Isolde reacted instantly. Groping in the darkness, she found her cloak and stuffed it into the chink between the ground and the bottom of the door. Then, drawing Piye’s knife from where she’d secreted it in her boot, she sliced the pillow neatly from the inside of her gown and rammed that under the door as well.
Not that it would save her. She could keep the smoke out a short while longer this way. But blocking off the door would be useless if the logs or thatch of the hut took fire. And despite the cloak and pillow, the smoke was growing thicker. Isolde coughed and wiped at her stinging eyes, imagining the crackling flames spreading from tent to tent outside, drawing slowly closer to run fiery tongues up the hut’s outer walls.
She tried kicking at the door, but it was still blocked solid. And the roof was well out of her reach. So she stood in the center of the room, arms locked about her, shivering and straining to hear the sounds from outside. Flinching involuntarily at every fresh ring and clash of axe or sword. Cursing the blanketing darkness that left her blind.
And then her throat closed off so that she choked and coughed and dashed at her streaming eyes again. Because the darkness had lightened. A yellow-orange glow was seeping into the hut. And then, with a hiss and a sharp crackle, one corner of the thatched roof over her head kindled and took flame.
Isolde jumped back, flattening herself against the opposite wall just in time to avoid being hit by falling, burning thatch. The dry straw caught almost immediately. The fire was spreading. Another moment and the whole roof would be ablaze.
Isolde could feel the heat of the fire on her face. Already the smoke was making it nearly impossible to breathe. Her vision darkened and her head spun as she coughed, lungs burning for air. Outside the hut she could hear a war dog barking and yelping, a mad, frantic sound that cut through even the ringing confusion of battle and the hiss and pop of the flames.
She was going to die. For a moment Isolde thought of all those who—perhaps—waited for her beyond the veil to the Otherworld. Her grandmother. Her father and mother. Her baby girl. Con. There had been times—many of them—when she would have felt nothing but sweet relief to think of leaving this world, of joining them in the one beyond. But now, all at once, she knew absolutely that she didn’t want to die.
She kicked again at the door, as hard as she could. At the very least, she refused to simply stand here and wait for the flames and the smoke to claim her. She could keep fighting to the last.
She kicked the door again, felt it give, if only slightly. And then she stopped, frozen in place as a crash sounded from outside, making the panel before her shake and shudder. Another crash. Someone outside was delivering what must be a series of smashing axe blows to the bar across the door.
Isolde didn’t even have time to be afraid or wonder who it was about to break down her prison door. Another blow—and another—and the door burst open. Outside was a sea of fire and smoke, but through the haze a lean, powerfully muscled form bounded at Isolde, nearly knocking her to the ground.
Isolde blinked, sure for a moment that she was still blinded and imagining sights where there were none. Then Cabal thrust his nose hard against her neck, and she knew that he was real. Real, alive, and in the midst of Octa’s burning army camp.
Isolde caught hold of the big dog, but before she could move, hands were reaching at her from the smoky darkness, grabbing her, hauling her outside the burning hut. Cabal was still barking frantically, pushing at her with his head, baying as bits of burning straw showered them from above. Then they were outside, in the comparatively clearer air, and as the roof of the prison hut collapsed altogether in a fiery crash, Isolde saw the man who had pulled her clear of the flames: thin, sharp features, leaf-brown eyes, and swirling blue patterns tattooed across his cheeks.
Fidach.
Isolde knew, in a distant way, that she ought to be surprised. But she seemed to have passed beyond a point where she was capable of feeling shock. If Cabal had proved to be the one wielding the axe, she would have given him the same blank stare she was giving Fidach now.
Fidach’s furred coat was gone; he wore breeches and a shirt open at the throat and plastered by sweat to his skin, so that every line of his emaciated chest was plain. He was coughing, fighting for breath, but he dragged Isolde farther away from the wreckage of the hut before he turned to her.
All about them the camp was burning, patches of dry grass underfoot going up in flames, tents collapsing in bursts of glowing sparks. Fidach had to shout to be heard over the roar. “Are you hurt? Can you walk?”
Isolde shook her head. “No. I mean, I’m not hurt. I can walk.”
“Good.” Fidach wiped sweat from his eyes with the back of his wrist. “Then get behind me and keep close. Let’s get out of this.”
The stumbling journey through the camp was a nightmare of roiling clouds of smoke and heat and leaping flames. Isolde kept a fold of her cloak over her mouth and nose, and in front of her Fidach had slashed a strip of fabric
from the hem of his shirt and tied it across his face. But even still, Isolde felt dizzy, her eyes watering and her lungs stinging and burning, and again and again a stray spark would land on Cabal’s fur, forcing her to stop to beat it out. The big dog kept close, pressed tight against her side, muscles bunched beneath his coat, teeth drawn back in a snarl.
The camp seemed all but empty, though. Two or three times Isolde caught sight of men locked in swaying combat, their bodies backlit by fire and obscured by smoke so that they seemed like warring gods at the end of the world. No one challenged their progress. Though whether Octa’s forces had been defeated and scattered, or whether Cerdic’s attacking army had been defeated and driven off, Isolde had no idea.
Only once as they came to the edge of the camp, finally leaving the scorching heat and smoke of the fire behind did Isolde stop and ask Fidach, “King Cerdic—”
“Will do very well without your help or mine. Come on.”
Fidach had tethered a horse—a big, raw-boned gray—in the shelter of trees surrounding Octa’s camp. Isolde looked back once over her shoulder at the blaze of fiery red behind them, standing out against the night sky. Then she let Fidach help her up to sit behind him on the horse’s back and simply hung on mindlessly as Fidach turned the gray’s head away from the burning encampment and urged her onward into the stretch of woods.
Under the canopy of trees, it was still dark enough that Fidach kept to a walking gait, watchful of tree roots and rocks that might make the horse stumble or fall. Cabal, trotting along at their heels, had no trouble keeping pace. They didn’t speak at all as they made their way through the forest. Isolde was too exhausted to rouse herself to speak, though now that she could breathe again without choking on smoke and ash, she had begun to wonder in a vague, distant way. Where had Fidach gotten the horse—and how had he come to find her? And, for that matter, why he should have troubled to save her life at all?
Finally, Fidach pulled on the gray’s reins and drew up at the edge of a small, bubbling stream. The sky had begun to turn gray with the coming dawn, so that there was light enough to see his face. His features were streaked black with soot and ash, his hair matted with ash and sweat. Isolde could guess that she must look about the same: every part of her exposed skin felt itchy and gritty.
Still without speaking, they both waded ankle deep into the stream and washed, scooping the water up in their cupped hands. Cabal lay on the bank, lapping the water up with his tongue. Fidach pulled off his shirt, and Isolde wished she could be rid of her filthy, crumpled, sweat- and water-soaked gown as well. She settled for pushing her sleeves back, scrubbing at her hands, her arms, her neck and face. The water was shockingly cold and left her skin tingling, but it was blessedly cool on Isolde’s parched throat when she raised her cupped hands to her mouth and drank.
When she had finished washing and drunk several handfuls, Isolde started to feel the return of something like coherent thought. She wrung the water out of the hem of her gown, then turned to Fidach, noticing for the first time that he had a long, bleeding cut on one arm. She wondered for a moment whether he’d won it fighting a way inside Octa’s camp, and for a moment she could picture him—fighting an unknown foe, delivering slashing sword blows with the same lightning speed he’d shown in fighting Trystan. Though he must have been slow at least once, if he’d come away marked from the fight.
She cleared her throat, then breaking the silence between them that had lasted since leaving the encampment behind, said, “Do you want me to tie that up for you?”
Fidach glanced at the cut as though he, too, were seeing it for the first time. Then he shook his head, pulling his shirt back on, and thrusting his arms into the sleeves. “Don’t bother. It’s not deep.”
There was another silence in which the bubbling splash of the stream and the early morning trill of birdcalls from the surrounding trees seemed very loud. Then: “How did you find me?” Isolde asked.
Fidach turned to her. The petty tyrant who lived for power, whose every word, every look was planned with calculated effect seemed entirely gone—though what remained in that man’s place, Isolde couldn’t quite tell. His face looked gaunt, the skin tightly stretched over his cheekbones, and as exhausted as Isolde felt. He rubbed at his face with his wet sleeve, then nodded towards Cabal.
“You can thank your war hound for that. He led me straight to the hut. Set up such a clamor I knew you had to be inside.”
Even his voice sounded different. Pleasant and deeper pitched. There were an almost countless number of questions that Isolde might have asked. How Fidach had come to find Cabal or to be looking for her at all, to start. But fatigue was closing over her like a muffling gray cloud, and she found she couldn’t make herself ask any of them.
Fidach was swinging himself up onto the horse. “Are you ready to go on?”
And so instead of asking any of the other questions, Isolde pushed a stray curl of damp hair back from her face and said, “Where are we going?”
Fidach looked mildly surprised. “Back to the abbey. Is that not where you’d want to go?” A flood of remembrance swept through Isolde like a chilling tide. Trystan. Back at the abbey, she’d see whether he’d survived the night or was …already gone. As a rule, she despised the practice of dressing up life’s end in a gentler name. Passing away. Passing on. Leaving the world. But even in thought she couldn’t bring herself to use the word died there.
She nodded wordlessly, and Fidach put out a hand to help her up onto the saddle. “Let’s be off, then.”
FIDACH REINED UP JUST BEFORE THEY reached the abbey gates, slid down off the gray’s back, then helped Isolde down. Isolde had fallen into a strange kind of mindless gray trance, half exhaustion, half dread of what she would find at journey’s end. And now that they were here, just outside the abbey walls, her every muscle tensed with the almost overwhelming urge to go straight in to Trystan, to know once and for all whether he still lived or whether—
She made herself turn to Fidach, though, and ask, “Do you want to come inside? I could stitch up that cut for you.” She gestured to the patch of blood that was seeping through Fidach’s sleeve.
Fidach glanced up at the abbey walls, then gave Isolde a wry half smile. “I think the walls of any house of holy women would likely cave in around my ears if I stepped inside. I’ll do well enough.”
Cabal had pressed himself close against her side, and Isolde absently rubbed his head, frowning. “Be sure to keep the cut clean, then.”
Fidach coughed, then tilted his head, the smile broadening into almost the mocking grin she remembered from before. “Afraid I’ll die before my time?”
In the harsh dawn light, he looked like a walking corpse, his head like one of the grinning skulls hung on his own walls. Isolde shook her head. “If you’d died before last night, I’d be dead now as well.”
Fidach must have understood the unspoken question, because he looked away, up at the abbey walls once again, drew in a breath, then let it out again. When he looked back at Isolde, his face was sober, all trace of posturing gone. As though, she thought again, he’d abandoned the face he wore before his men—in the same way he might have thrown off his many-furred cloak. His eyes now looked puckered with fatigue, and Isolde could see a black smear of ash still on his neck and places where his hair had been singed.
“I command a band of masterless men,” he said. “Men whose only law is that of their own hunger, their own ambition and greed. Such men understand only one kind of leader—one who rules through fear. And a man without honor—without conscience—is more to be feared. That is simple truth.”
He paused, seeming to expect some kind of response, so Isolde said, “I suppose that’s true.”
Fidach jerked his head in agreement and coughed again, covering his mouth with his hand. “But just because I cultivate the reputation of a man without honor, it does not follow that I have none.” Another of those wry half smiles played about the corners of his mouth. “A man whose death ho
vers so clearly at his shoulder begins to be cautious what risks he takes with his soul. And whatever a man’s soul is—and as to that, who can say?—it is contained in his word. Like water in a jar. Shatter the jar—break a sworn oath—and a man’s whole self leaks uselessly away onto the muddy ground.”
Another explosion of coughing interrupted him, making him hunch his shoulders and bend forward until the racking fit had stopped. When he straightened and took his hand from his mouth, Isolde saw once again the smear of blood on his palm.
Isolde had a sudden picture of a younger Fidach, the warrior’s tattoos on his cheeks bright and new, his body vigorous, healthy, and whole. Oath-sworn, maybe, to one of the chiefs of the Pritani country, the wild lands beyond the Romans’ great northern wall. Learning the warrior’s arts—skill with a sword, how to fight on horseback—and then suffering some disgrace, outliving his chief in battle, maybe. Or maybe simply the discovery that he was a lover of men. Something, at any rate, that made him all at once outlaw, untouchable. And so he’d created this identity, this public self he wore like a cloak: a man who knew all, who fed off other men’s fears, and so was feared himself. A man to whom appeals of conscience were useless, because he had none. And yet all the while that young warrior lived behind the other man’s eyes.
It might, Isolde thought, be like that. Though she supposed she would never know for certain. The force of will that was keeping Fidach on his feet and upright now was surely strong enough to guard whatever secrets lay in his past.
As though again reading her thoughts, Fidach shook his head. “I doubt the smoke did me any good. But then didn’t I tell you a dying man may fear everything or nothing at all?” He paused, the faint smile fading, his eyes on Isolde’s. “I undertook to keep you safe. I gave Trystan my word that I would see you safe from harm. A man in my position gathers all the information he can. Knowledge is power—I told you that also. And there are many in these parts—Cerdic of Wessex, to name but one—who pay handsomely for such intelligence as I can provide. So I might—would—have been willing to negotiate with King Octa of Kent. To pretend that I had something—or someone—of value that he sought. To pretend that I was willing to trade that someone for a price in gold. But in the end, Octa would have been left without his prize. And Cerdic of Wessex—or whichever of Octa’s other enemies offered the highest price for the intelligence—would have been the richer by whatever I had learned of Octa’s movements and plans.”