Company of Liars

by Karen Maitland

  ‘First catch your fish before you argue about how to cook it,’ the innkeeper’s wife said tartly.

  The innkeeper adopted the brisk tone of one who considers it his duty to take charge. ‘Bring her trussed and gagged and lock her in the church tower. The church is holy ground and will keep her spirit bound. Then we’ll hold a meeting to decide how the killing’s to be done.’

  I didn’t want to know how they would do it. I thought if I did, my nerve would fail me. I rose. ‘I have to get back before they become suspicious. You’ll come tonight then?’

  They looked at each other, then one by one they nodded.

  Gunter said, ‘You’ll see to it your companions don’t interfere? Those men you’ve got with you look as if they’d be handy with a quarterstaff and I’ve got enough troubles without getting my head cracked.’

  ‘I’ll set a light at the foot of the cross at the end of the spur when it’s safe,’ I promised.

  ‘We’ll wait for the light, then.’

  It wasn’t so easy to use the poppy juice a second time. I knew I would have to be seen to eat, so I couldn’t risk putting it in the pottage itself, which would have been simple in the dark. It would have to go into the bowls, all of them except mine, but Adela usually ladled out the pottage. However, a surreptitious pinch on Carwyn’s thigh made him cry and brought Adela running to comfort him, grateful for my offer to ladle out the pottage. I handed the bowls to Osmond and Rodrigo, who tucked in straight away, ravenous after a day’s hunting, but as Narigorm carried her bowl back to her place she appeared to trip and the contents of the bowl landed upside down on the grass.

  ‘Never mind, I’ll get you some more,’ I said, as calmly as I could.

  She smiled sweetly. ‘Oh no, you rest, Camelot. I’ll get it.’

  There was nothing I could do. Did she know I had drugged her the night before? She was clever enough to have worked that out.

  Adela took a long time settling Carwyn and by the time she came to eat, the bowl I had placed in front of her was cold. Before I could stop her, she tipped it back into the steaming pot, stirred it and ladled out a fresh bowl. No matter, I told myself, as long as Rodrigo and Osmond were asleep, I could deal with Adela, and maybe she had taken enough for she seemed sleepy anyway, which was more than could be said for Narigorm.

  Osmond and Rodrigo quickly became drowsy and Osmond was happy to accept that I took first watch, in fact he could scarcely keep his eyes open long enough to murmur his agreement. I hoped that I hadn’t administered too much. One by one I watched them curl up, until only Narigorm remained awake. She sat on the other side of the fire, her back to the marsh, her pale eyes glittering in the firelight and her hair turned to a mass of dancing flame as it blew in the wind.

  As casually as I could, I went to the cross and set a lantern beneath it, so that the cross was lit up against the dark sky. It was bitterly cold and the wind was gathering strength. Was Gunter right? Was Narigorm capable of raising a storm with the shaking of her hair? I’d encouraged them to believe it. I prayed it was a lie that would not turn out to be the truth. I crossed back to the fire.

  Narigorm was watching me. ‘Why have you set a lantern there? Do you think the cross will protect you from the wolf?’

  I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to speak. My ears were straining to hear the sound of oars over the roar of the wind. The flames in the fire pit blew this way and that. I moved a stone to shelter the top a little more.

  ‘You put something in my food last night to make me sleep.’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘You think if I sleep the wolf won’t come. But you know she will come tonight, don’t you?’ There was a note of pleasure in her voice. ‘That’s why you made the others sleep. You think that if they sleep they can’t hear the wolf. But they can. Cygnus heard the swans in his sleep. It is worse if you hear the wolf in your sleep, because then you have to face her alone. In your dreams she can do anything.’

  ‘Why do you do this, Narigorm?’

  ‘Because I can.’

  There was no moon tonight, thick, heavy clouds blotted out the stars. The pale light reflecting from the cross seemed to penetrate no more than a hand’s breadth into the darkness. Would they even see it?

  ‘You spoke before of Morrigan. She’s an ancient goddess, a savage goddess. Do you do this to serve her?’

  I wanted to keep her talking, keep her occupied, but she wasn’t listening.

  She had taken the runes out of her bag and scattered them in front her. Then I saw her place something else in the centre of them. It was a clipping of coarse hair. I recognized it by the white bindings around it. I had tied it. It was hair I used to sell as the beard of St Uncumber. I’d given a piece of it to the bride at the Cripples’ Wedding. My stomach tightened. I knew what Narigorm was doing, she wanted to use something of mine, but why had she chosen that? She could not know the significance of it to me. I prayed she did not.

  She turned over one rune. ‘Othel reversed. Othel, the home. You think of your home long ago, but reversed means you are alone. You will be alone.’

  Did that mean they wouldn’t come? I tried not to think about the villagers, afraid that if I let my thoughts turn to them, somehow she’d see them in the runes.

  ‘Now I’ll ask them what you fear.’ She picked up a second rune. ‘This isn’t a wolf rune. You don’t fear a wolf. This is Hagall – hail. Threat and destruction. A battle.’ She looked up at me. ‘That’s it, isn’t it, a battle? Now what is the lie?’

  I wanted her to stop. I knew if I scattered the runes I could stop her for tonight, but that would not finish it. There’d be other nights. Only if I let her continue did I stand any chance of ending this for good.

  ‘Beoro reversed – the birch tree. The mother, but reversed. Your family dead, is that it? No… no, that’s not the lie.’

  She stared at me, her eyes widening in surprise, then she threw back her head and laughed. She picked up the tiny lock of beard and, pulling the binding loose, she held the hairs up in the wind, her other hand covering the runes.

  She lifted her head and closed her eyes. ‘Hagall, Morrigan. Hagall, Hagall, Hagall.’

  I heard the screams of women and children, the sounds of swords clashing, shouting and cursing. And above all the noise, I heard my own children crying out, begging me to help them. I turned this way and that looking for them. The night was too dark to see anything. I thrust a branch into the fire and pulled it out, but the wind immediately snuffed out the flame. The wind was roaring, but above its shrieking I could hear my little sons screaming from beyond the cross. They were crying for me, calling out to me over and over again, fear and desperation in every sob. They were out there on the marsh. They were in danger and they needed me. I had to get to them. I ran past the cross, towards the end of the spur. I could see their dark shapes in the marsh, their arms held out to me. They were sinking before my eyes. If I could stretch out to them, grab an arm, a hand, anything. I began to scramble down the edge of the island, slipping and sliding on the wet grass towards the marsh. My foot sank into the cold, dark, oily water. I felt myself falling. I tried to grab a tussock to stop myself, but the wet grass slid through my hands. I was sinking.

  30. Truth

  My leg had slipped up to the thigh into the cold, muddy water, before something heavy collided with me. Hands caught hold of me, yanked me upwards and thrust me aside and by the light of the lantern on the cross I saw two shapes dart past me. I turned just in time to see one of the figures slide up behind Narigorm and thrust a sack over her head. At once the sound of battle and screaming ceased. I could hear only Narigorm’s muffled cries as she struggled. William – I could see it was him from his massive outline – was trying to stuff something under the sack into her mouth and cursing loudly as she bit him. Gunter was trying to bind her hands behind her. But before he could secure her another figure leaped at him.

  ‘Leave her, leave her alone.’

  It was Adela. She had woken. Sh
e was beating Gunter with her stave. He dropped Narigorm’s rope and tried to protect his head, cowering under the blows that Adela rained down on his back. I moved swiftly, grabbing Adela’s upraised arm and jerking her backwards. She fell awkwardly, crying out in pain. I pinned her to the ground from behind.

  Narigorm was fighting for her life. She had thrown off the ropes and it was all William could do to hold her. Two other men came running up the spur from beyond the cross. They grabbed Narigorm and held her as William and Gunter struggled to tie the ropes round the thrashing girl.

  Behind the men, I saw Rodrigo stirring. He tried to roll to his knees, still drugged by the poppy juice.

  ‘Get the girl out of here,’ I shouted to William, then realized none of them could hear me. They had taken me at my word and stuffed their ears. If Rodrigo found his feet and his stave… I took a gamble. I let Adela go and, snatching up her stave, covered the few yards to Rodrigo. I brought the end of her stave down hard across his shoulders; he groaned and slumped back down into the grass.

  William slung Narigorm over his shoulder and all four men hurried down the spur and disappeared below the cross. In the darkness I heard the splashing of the oars before the sound was borne away on the wind.

  I walked to the cross and crouched down with my back to it, staring out into the impenetrable darkness of the marsh beyond. Behind me I could hear Adela sobbing, trying to rouse Osmond and Rodrigo. Little Carwyn was wailing, but even the sounds of the wind tearing at the rushes seemed muffled as if my ears too were stuffed with wax.

  What had I become? Was I that demon which stared out at me from the mirror? Had I truly become that foul thing? I thought of a child lying bound and gagged in the icy water at the bottom of a boat, being tossed up and down, unable to see where she was going or who had taken her. I imagined her terror, wondering what these strangers were going to do to her. And I knew they were going to kill her. I didn’t know how, but I knew it would not be gentle. They had to do it thoroughly. What would they choose? Drowning? Hanging? Burning? I shuddered. What had Rodrigo said? ‘You should not take the name of death in vain.’

  She’d asked the runes, ‘What was the lie?’ There were so many and I had meant them well. My lies had brought hope where there was none. I’d believed mine was the greatest of all the arts, the noblest of all the lies, the creation of hope. I thought hope could overcome everything, but I was wrong. Hope cannot overcome truth. They cannot coexist. Truth destroys hope. The most savage cruelties man inflicts on man are committed in the pursuit of truth. My last lie had been the most honest, the most honourable of them all, for there is an art greater even than the creation of hope. The greatest art of all is the destruction of truth.

  The clouds opened before morning. An icy-cold rain beat down with a savage ferocity in the wind. I welcomed the stinging of my face and hands; it felt like a penance, a cleansing. I sat there in front of the cross accepting the rain’s whipping, until the candle in the lantern died and the pale grey dawn drenched the marshes in light. Behind me, the others stirred. Adela, unable to rouse either Osmond or Rodrigo, had taken Carwyn in her arms and cried herself to sleep. Now they were awake, I would have to face them. I only prayed I could make them understand that I had done it to save them.

  Adela sat inside the hermit’s hut and Rodrigo and Osmond huddled at the doorway. Adela had clearly recounted the events of the night before, for as I approached Osmond leaped up and seized my arm. His brow furrowed with anxiety.

  ‘Who were they who came last night and where have they taken Narigorm?’

  I thought about telling him I didn’t know, inventing some tale of having dragged Adela away from Gunter to keep her from being hurt, even my hitting Rodrigo to keep him from harm. They would have believed me. They wanted to believe that. They did not want the truth; as Rodrigo had said, who but a priest does? But I was too weary to create a lie for them, too tired to make it well again for them. I needed to confess. I had no strength left to do otherwise.

  ‘Villagers took Narigorm.’

  Adela’s eyes were red and swollen. ‘But why did you pull me off them? I could have stopped them. I tried –’

  ‘You were no match for four big men. There was nothing you could have done. It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘We’ll have to go after them and rescue her,’ Osmond said. ‘Where’s their village? I can’t understand why I slept through all that commotion, Rodrigo too. Adela said she couldn’t wake us.’

  Rivulets of silver water began to trickle around the stones in the grass. I wondered if this rain would go on falling until the next Midsummer’s Day.

  ‘I drugged you so you wouldn’t wake. They would have hurt you if you’d fought them. They were determined to take her.’

  All three of them stared at me, shock on every face.

  Osmond rubbed his forehead. ‘But I don’t understand. If you knew they were coming, why didn’t you warn us? We could have hidden her. We could have beaten them if we’d been prepared. And anyway, how did you know they were going to come?’

  I was exhausted, couldn’t they see that? Why were they asking me these questions? What did it matter? They were safe now, didn’t they understand that?

  Rodrigo winced as he moved his back. ‘Why have they taken her, Camelot?’

  ‘They were afraid of her white hair. They thought if she combed it, it would stir up the white waves of a storm.’ I was sorry I’d hurt him. I must have hit him hard.

  ‘Then we must tell them we’ll take her away from here,’ Osmond said quickly. ‘They needn’t be –’

  ‘I think that is not the only reason,’ Rodrigo broke in. ‘You knew they were coming. Why did they take her, Camelot?’ he repeated. There was a cold anger in his eyes as if he already knew the answer.

  I took a deep breath and met his gaze steadily. ‘You wouldn’t believe the danger you were in from her, so I went to them. They were already afraid of her. It was easy to persuade them that she was dangerous. I believe she would have turned on them, once she’d finished with us, so that much of what I told them was not a lie. I convinced them they had to get rid of her.’

  ‘And what will they do with her?’

  This time I couldn’t meet his gaze. ‘They will… kill her. They have to. It’s the only way to stop her.’

  Adela clapped her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide with horror.

  Osmond, already pale, was swaying as if he was about to be sick. ‘No, Camelot, you wouldn’t do such a thing, a kind old man like you, to trick a group of villagers into murdering an innocent child. You couldn’t.’

  Rodrigo was on his feet. He came unsteadily towards me. For a moment I thought he was going to hit me and I almost wanted him to. If he had beaten me half to death, I would have welcomed the pain of it, the punishment of it. But instead he stared at me as if he didn’t know who I was.

  ‘You have murdered a child and you did not even have the courage to kill her with your own hands. Il sangue di Dio! I have killed men, but at least I thrust in the knife myself, I did not get others to do it for me.’

  He raised his fist as if he was going to punch me. I braced myself, but the blow didn’t fall. He shook his head.

  ‘I cannot bring myself to touch you,’ he said in disgust. ‘You are a coward, Camelot, a filthy coward.’

  He spat into my face. I did not wipe it away.

  ‘Go. Go now and get as far away from us as you can, for if I ever see your monstrous face again I shall kill you with my bare hands. And make no mistake; unlike you, I am man enough to do it.’

  I picked up my pack and walked away without looking back. As I passed her, Xanthus pricked up her ears and gave a little whinny, but I could not trust myself even to pat her. I walked until I was far enough away from the camp for them not to hear and then I wept uncontrollably, like a child.

  31. St Uncumber

  I was finally going home, returning at last to the wild, lonely hills they call the Cheviots. There was no other place left for me t
o go, no other place on the face of the land where I could take refuge. I ached for it. I needed to touch it, to smell it, to bury myself deep in its earth. Only that instinct kept me walking, one step, then another and another. Like an animal hunted beyond exhaustion, even dying I would have crawled to reach my home.

  But what is home? I had asked myself that question on the day it all began, a day that seemed like a lifetime ago. And I asked it again, tumbling it over and over in my mind as I trudged northwards. Is home the place where you were born? To the old that has become a foreign country. Is it the place where you lay your head each night? If that were so, then every ditch, barn and forest in the land I should name as home, for I’ve slept in most of them. Is it the place which has soaked up the blood of your ancestors? That’s the home of the dead, not the living. Is home then the place that holds your loved ones? Not when the one you love is absent.

  It has taken me months, years perhaps, to fathom the answer. Home is the place you return to when you have finally lost your soul. Home is the place where life is born, not the place of your birth, but the place where you seek rebirth. When you no longer remember which tale of your own past is true and which is an invention, when you know that you are an invention, then is the time to seek out your home. Perhaps only when you have come to understand that, can you finally reach home.

  I had travelled through a devastated landscape, skirting deserted villages and empty barns. Crops, beaten down into the mud, lay unharvested, rotting to the colour of the dirt from which they sprang. Pastures were eerily silent, sheep and cattle dead or wandered off to fend for themselves. No smoke rose from the hearths of houses. No hammer blows echoed from the blacksmith’s forge.

  Once, children’s voices had shrieked through windows; now weeds scrambled out through the empty casements. Thatch slumped to the ground and doors swung back and forth in the wind with the hollow banging of a leper’s clapper. The churches still stood proudly, but they were hollow and empty. The market crosses rose in silence and no hands touched them to swear or seal a bargain. Little children and feeble old men wandered among the silent cottages, waiting for someone to return for them, but no one ever came. Once, among the black-crossed houses, I saw a man hang himself. He had survived and that was too much for him to bear.